Mercedes in better shape for Japan, says Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton is happy that his unpredictable Mercedes is in better shape ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix despite heavy rain severely limiting running in practice yesterday.

The Briton leads the world championship by 34 points after he eked everything out of his car to seal second place in Malaysia last weekend, despite both Ferrari and Red Bull being faster around Sepang.

After the race in Kuala Lumpur, Mercedes head of motorsport Toto Wolff admitted this year’s car was becoming more and more capricious, while on Thursday Hamilton labelled his car “stubborn”.

Sebastian Vettel is his closest rival and the Ferrari man topped the timesheet ahead of Hamilton after first practice at Suzuka.

Heavy rain fell before and during second practice, with half of the 90-minute session written off before five drivers set full lap times.

Hamilton was the quickest of that quintet and he was pleased with what he saw from his Mercedes even with limited running.

“It’s been an interesting day, the car is feeling much better than it was in Malaysia,” he said.

“I’m glad that we had the dry session for FP1. In FP2, there was a lot of rain, but it felt really important to go out and assess the track and see how the car was feeling as the car was not good in the wet in Malaysia.

“The car feels back to normal, so I’m ready to race.”

“That’s also another reason I wanted to go out and at least give them a little bit of a show. So hopefully at least they got to see something as not many cars went out.”

Red Bull won in Malaysia as Max Verstappen took the chequered flag and could still play a part in the championship shake-up in Japan.

Daniel Ricciardo was close behind Hamilton in first practice with the second Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas fifth.