- US GP - FP2
Hamilton undaunted by Friday problems
Lewis Hamilton says he does not expect the problems which brought his Friday to a premature end to continue throughout the weekend in Austin after topping both of the day's practice sessions.
Hamilton edged team-mate and title rival Nico Rosberg by just 0.003s in FP2, but had his session cut short after just 18 laps. He returned to the garage and had his car stripped down, with the Mercedes mechanics paying extra attention to the right rear.
Reliability has been a worry for Mercedes all season but Hamilton, who leads Rosberg in the championship by 17 points with three races to spare, is confident the team can get on top of its issues this weekend.
"These are small glitches and it's better it happened today," Hamilton said. "I'm confident we won't have problems moving forward, but again you don't know what lays ahead. We have to take it as it comes. It doesn't help, of course, when you lose a bit of time on the long run because you get a real good understanding of the balance, how much you can push, how much fuel you need to save and those kiond of things. Nico had the whole session so hopefully from that we'll learn and understand the data. From me hopefully I'll get a better feel in the race.
"I actually don't know what the problem is but they said it was a fluid leak somewhere or a hydraulic leak or something like that. The car was feeling fine, it's just we had to stop just in case. They'll be fixing that and I don't necessarily mind and the car was feeling good. I just said that to Niki [Lauda], but he said 'This cannot happen with our cars at all. We've got to improve so they are perfect'."
There was just 0.003s to choose between Hamilton and Rosberg in the final Friday practice session, something he expects to continue throughout the weekend.
"The car feels good, I think it's looking very close between me and Nico. I'm expecting a very, very tough battle in terms of us racing. But I'm excited and I'm ready for it."
Paddy Lowe, Mercedes executive director (technical), says Hamilton's stoppage was done as a precaution and that it had nothing to do with radio messages from Hamilton complaining about the upshifts on his gearbox during the session.
"We don't know exactly what it was yet, it was a precautionary stop really. Those [radio messages] were unrelated, something different altogether," Lowe said. "We had two or three things going on at the same time. This is separate. It's really important factor in the championship at the moment but becoming particularly pointy with the two drivers heading towards Abu Dhabi. It's a big challenge for us to ensure they get six car finishes in the remaining races."
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