Just five days after finishing a close second on the road to Max Verstappen at COTA, Hamilton was 11th in FP1 and seventh in FP2, 0.338s off the pacesetting Red Bull driver in a tightly-packed field.

His team-mate George Russell was 10th in FP2, having handed his car to Mercedes junior driver Frederik Vesti for the first session.

After some changes in the break, Hamilton and Russell ran different set-ups in the later session, and neither was happy with the performance.

"Not that great,” said Hamilton when asked about his Friday. “Yeah, dodgy - not dodgy, but like just not the greatest. Bit of a struggle in the car today.

“The car is night and day different compared to last week. I don't really know what really to say.

"You just never know what you're going to get with this one.

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