• United States Grand Prix - FP2

Hamilton predicts 'tough' Saturday for McLaren

ESPN Staff
November 16, 2012 « Vettel shrugs off Red Bull problem | Button not worried by Vettel's pace »
Lewis Hamilton was over a second slower than Sebastian Vettel in both practice sessions © Sutton Images
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Lewis Hamilton believes qualifying will be "tough" for McLaren as it struggles to get heat in to its tyres at the Circuit of the Americas.

Hamilton was second quickest in the first practice session for the United States Grand Prix and then was fourth in the afternoon as Sebastian Vettel dominated on Friday. While always near the top of the times, Hamilton admitted McLaren's problem was getting the tyres to work over one lap with lower temperatures than recent races.

"The difficulty today was switching on the tyres, getting them to work in these cool conditions is not the easiest since we had the hard and the medium, so it's going to be tough tomorrow," he said.

Hamilton also admitted that he wasn't sure he would be able to match Vettel's pace on Saturday.

"I don't know where he got that time from but that's very quick. I don't know whether or not we have that pace, but we're going to go in to tomorrow, we're going to make some changes, we can definitely improve our car, there's some bits that we can improve on; we tested something there that wasn't so good so hopefully we go back to what we had in P1 and we will be better off tomorrow."

Looking at the circuit specifically, Hamilton said it was "very difficult to drive" but a challenge he enjoyed.

"It is a great track to drive on, but I think the whole track is very, very difficult to drive. It's very tough to get all the sectors together. I find generally the second and the last sector are the easier ones; the first sector is the hardest with the high speed, there are several different lines you can take through it and it's massively quick. So getting the right balance through there and also for the middle and the last sectors is not that easy.

"What a great turnout on a Friday here in the States. They've done such a great job with the whole event, I'm so excited for tomorrow and for Sunday; I really hope that people enjoy the race."

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