BAKU, Azerbaijan -- Lewis Hamilton says Mercedes simply wasn't quick enough during Friday practice for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix as he finished the day fifth fastest.
Hamilton was 0.8s off the fastest time set by Daniel Ricciardo and a tenth of a second slower than teammate Valtteri Bottas as both Red Bull and Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari appeared to have the edge over the world champions. Although Hamilton made mistakes on his quick lap and did not hook up his best three sectors, he said that the car wasn't on the pace on Friday.
"Overall, we weren't quick enough today, both Red Bull and Ferrari seem to be ahead of us at the moment," he said. "So we've got some work to do. I'm going to be knocking on the doors of all the engineers overnight, so that we can hopefully make the right changes."
After struggling to get the tyres in the right operating window at the last race in China, Hamilton said Mercedes had a constructive day building its understanding of the way Pirelli's rubber react in different temperatures.
"It's been a smooth day. We got through everything we needed without many mistakes and we gathered lots of information. It started out quite warm but cooled down in the afternoon, which made it interesting to try and understand the tyres in both conditions."