Lewis Hamilton said he lost his confidence in his Mercedes W15 car after a grim day on track in Melbourne on Friday.

The seven-time world champion was solid enough in FP1, setting the ninth fastest time. But the Brit was hamstrung by setup changes in the second session of the day and he was left marooned down in 18th on the timesheets.

Mercedes had promised to “experiment” throughout the day and lived up to that. But the end result was a glum Hamilton admitting at the end of Friday’s running that he was not feeling positive about his chances this weekend.

Hamilton said: “I obviously don’t feel great. We had one of the worst sessions I’ve probably had for a long time. FP1 generally felt quite good – the car actually in FP1, run one, felt the best it’s ever felt, then it just got worse and worse.

“I made some changes, big changes into… well, we made some big changes into FP2, and it was tough. After that session I feel the least confident I’ve ever felt with this car, but there are positives from that FP1 run that we did.”

Those setup changes that hampered Hamilton’s efforts in FP2 were important for the team. Mercedes are struggling to figure out why their car is limited in certain ways, particularly in high-speed corners, and they said in the build-up to this weekend’s action that they planned to “experiment” in practice.

And, speaking after FP2, team principal Toto Wolff confirmed that, despite their efforts, they hadn’t managed to make any notable improvements to the car. The Austrian said: “We’ve achieved an experiment, but we haven’t unlocked performance.

This article contains affiliate links, we will receive a commission on any sales we generate from it. Learn more

Catch all the action from Formula One on Sky Sports and get exclusive access to races, qualifying and much more for every Grand Prix. From Max Verstappen to Lewis Hamilton, you won’t miss a lap on Sky Sports.

“I think in the second session we went through a really dramatic set-up change with Lewis and that has massively backfired. But this is why we are having these sessions – and on the other side it was a little bit better. But we are lacking performance over a single lap. Overall, it wasn’t a good day.

Promoted Stories
“If I said I wasn’t frustrated, it would not be the truth. Certainly we are, because we’re trying so hard in all directions, but we don’t seem to have found that silver bullet yet which helps us to move in the right direction.

“But we’ve got to keep trying – we’ve seen the performance of this car before and I don’t want to go back and say we’re just not good under these regulations, because we have everything we need to get on top of that. And we will.”