Lewis Hamilton at the 20th Barcelona weekend: "Less grip than ever before"

While Ferrari star Charles Leclerc finished the first practice session at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in third place on the timesheets, Lewis Hamilton had to watch the action on the track as an observer. This was because Ferrari Junior Dino Beganovic was sitting in his GP racer from Maranello. The seven-time champion took the wheel just in time for the second practice session.

And Hamilton struggled to set a good lap time in the hot conditions. Leclerc managed the fourth-fastest lap of the day, while Hamilton was more than eight tenths slower than the Monegasque on his fastest attempt and was unable to finish higher than ninth. The Briton was correspondingly taciturn when he answered the journalists' questions afterwards.

"I only drove one session and it was obviously very hot, which was incredibly difficult," said the 41-year-old. "I had less grip than ever before. The tyres only lasted for one lap, which was a big challenge," said the record GP winner, describing his problems.

And that was not the 105-time GP winner's only concern. "I had a problem with the front wing, which made the work even more complicated," he complained. "It made preparing the tyres in particular more difficult, and the fact that I missed the first practice session obviously didn't help either, so I was a bit behind. So there is still a lot for us to do, but we were able to collect important data and are now focussing on making the right changes so that we can improve."

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