After setting the pace in FP2 ahead of the Italian Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton said the “challenge” facing Mercedes relates to their long-run performance.

Hamilton and Mercedes are looking to bounce back from a difficult Dutch Grand Prix which saw Hamilton eliminated in Q2, and the early signs at Monza are promising with Hamilton topping the second practice session, a mere 0.003s up on McLaren’s Lando Norris.

Lewis Hamilton highlights Mercedes long-run pace as Monza ‘challenge’

Hamilton reflected on his Friday as a “good day”, though there is still work to do, primarily getting on top of long-run performance with drivers having quite widely suffered from high tyre degradation around the resurfaced Monza track.

And making sure they can “go the distance” is the “challenge” which Hamilton sees facing Mercedes.

Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton.

“It’s been a good day. Generally felt pretty good,” he said.

“Obviously the new tarmac has been a bit of a challenge and all the new kerbs, but the car felt good from the start.

“But then going through [F]P1 there was a lot of graining, people struggling with tyres, including us, and then we made some good changes over the break. The car was feeling even better in this session [FP2].

“Still, some work to do on a few things, a few areas, and I think ultimately for long run, so that we can go the distance, I think that’s the challenge at the moment.

“I think it’s going to be really important the work we do tonight, the work that’s done back at the factory on the simulator, just to really tread carefully with the setup so we don’t put the car too out of bed like we’ve done in the past.”

Despite topping the FP2 timings, Hamilton found himself rather hot and bothered during the session, as did team-mate George Russell, with both Mercedes drivers complaining about a hot seat.

Hamilton would liken it to “sitting on the sauna with no shorts on”.

“It was ridiculously roasting in our car,” he said, “for I’m not quite sure exactly.

“I think down by the radiators there’s probably some leakage of hot air, so yeah, it was very hot. Like sitting on the sauna with no shorts on sort of pain.”

Hamilton would set a new outright F1 record for most Monza victories should he claim a sixth win this weekend. He currently shares the record with Ferrari icon Michael Schumacher.