- United States Grand Prix - FP2
Hamilton trying to rebuild confidence
Lewis Hamilton says he is trying to build up his confidence over the United States Grand Prix weekend after a poor race in Abu Dhabi.
Following a poor run of form which culminated in a lacklustre seventh place at the Yas Marina Circuit, Hamilton admitted he had not been comfortable with his car. Mercedes found some cracks in his chassis on arrival in Austin and has since changed it, but Hamilton said he has to try to make gradual progress this weekend.
"I'm trying to build the confidence," Hamilton said. "Obviously the last race was probably a freak race [and] the crack probably did make quite a big effect. Today the long run didn't feel so bad but Friday doesn't really matter to be honest; it's a waste of a day almost. You do all this running and the track changes when you go in to Saturday and it's a little bit different so getting in to the race - even if you've done a good run on Friday - the race is always different."
However, Hamilton said it is important he improves across the final two races to try and take momentum in to 2014.
"You've got to keep the motivation because wherever you finish off we'll be trying to really solidify a foundation where we can start from next year. So you don't want to end up on a bad, you want to end up on as much of as a high as possible."
With a new chassis at his disposal this weekend, Hamilton did admit he'd found it made a slight difference.
"It felt better, particularly on the long run, but the setup is still difficult to nail and I don't know if we've nailed it yet.
"I don't think I've nailed the setup all year. It's not nailed this weekend and I don't think it's going to be nailed for the rest of the year! It wasn't a spectacular day but we got a long run on the option which was OK."
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