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We are competitive, but it's still close: Hamilton
Lewis Hamilton topped in practice timing.
The Mercedes ace, who was upstaged by Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel in the first session earlier in the afternoon responded by being quickest in the evening.
"It's been a good Friday, but I'm happy that it's the last one of the season," Hamilton said after practice on Friday.
"We got lots of laps in today (Friday) and made good progress with the balance of the car. We have a bit of work to do, but I feel like we're quite competitive here. It's relatively close still, but I like that," he added.
Hamilton, who used the Pirelli's SuperSoft and UltraSoft compound tyres in the second session, clocked 1:37.877 seconds.
Meanwhile, teammate Valtteri Bottas, felt it was a pretty good day's work after finishing fifth in both the sessions.
"We dedicated the first practice session to testing for next year. We ran different kinds of mechanical and especially aero tests. So we didn't learn that much for this weekend in FP1, but definitely a lot for next year," said Bottas.
"The second session was more straightforward. I was missing a bit of time in the last sector, so as a team we need to work on that. The temperatures here are ok; it's definitely warm in the cockpit, but we've been to worse places. Overall, it's been a pretty good day, we just need to find some more pace from my side for tomorrow (Saturday)," added the Finn, who is battling Vettel for second in the Championship. Meanwhile, Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes chief race engineer said that the first session was largely focussed on the development of the car for 2018, while the second for prepping for qualifying and the race.
"It was a busy day for the drivers and everyone in the garage," said Shovlin.
"We had a large development programme focused on 2018, this required both cars to devote the entire P1 session towards this work. But despite the ambitious programme, we managed to get through it all successfully. The track cools significantly into the evening session and our focus shifted towards qualifying and race preparation," he said.
Shovlin said that the car handled well although Bottas had a few issues and added that he expected a tough battle in qualifying on Saturday.
"The car seems to be working reasonably well although we've got plenty of areas we can look to improve overnight. Valtteri in particular was not comfortable with how the car was handling on a single lap so we have a bit of work to do there. Lewis found the car more predictable on low fuel but there are still some areas that we can find a bit of time. The long run balance was quite consistent but it's difficult to know where everyone is as there seemed to be a lot of traffic out there today and many cars were struggling to string clear laps together," said Shovlin.
"We are expecting another tough battle for pole tomorrow, having seen strong times posted by both Red Bull and Ferrari through the sessions, but we are determined to finish the season on a high and will make sure we give it our best shot," he added.
james@khaleejtimes.com
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