Lewis Hamilton says Mercedes feels ‘strong’ at Suzuka

Britain’s Lewis Hamilton said after Friday practice at the Japanese Grand Prix that Mercedes were “definitely strong” and could compete with Ferrari.

Hamilton, who leads Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel by 34 points in the title race, said the car felt “massively different” from the last race in Malaysia.

“It’s definitely in a better direction, in the wet and in the dry,” he said.

Hamilton topped the wet afternoon session and was second, two tenths down on Vettel, in a dry first practice. Hamilton was one of only five drivers to set a lap time in a second session shortened by half because of heavy rain in the first 45 minutes.

He said: “It was important for me [to go out in the wet] because the car felt different in first practice compared to last week - massively, massively different - and in the rain [in practice] in the last race we were, like, 2.5 seconds off and the car was terrible so it was important for me to just go out and double check if that’s still the case here.

“It feels so different to the last race.” Mercedes had only the third-fastest car behind Ferrari and Red Bull in race trim at Sepang but Hamilton benefited from problems for Vettel, who could finish only fourth after an engine failure in qualifying left him at the back of the grid. Vettel did not set a time in second practice on Friday, although he did briefly venture out on track.

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Teams were reluctant to run because each driver is limited to four sets of wet-weather tyres for the weekend, although qualifying and race are expected to be dry.

Even when the green light was shown only 14 of the 20 drivers ventured out at all, and the majority returned to the pits after one lap.

Stroll was the only driver to fall prey to the conditions, sliding off the track after hitting a patch of water at Turn One and narrowly avoiding a crash.-BBC