Hamilton surprisingly positive after fastest time in Monza: 'Car felt good'

Hamilton admits work to do before tomorrow

"In terms of our car performance, it's been a good day," Hamilton admitted. The seven-time world champion finished FP1 in seventh but was on top at the end of FP2.  The Brit continued to say "This new tarmac and the smoother kerbs have presented an interesting challenge, but the car has felt good from the start. There seemed to be some graining up and down the field in FP1 and people struggling with the tyres. We made some solid changes ahead of FP2 and the car took a step forward in that final hour. There's still some work for us to do overnight both here and at the factory, particularly around the long run, so we can be as competitive as possible over the rest of the weekend."

George Russell only ran in FP2, after Mercedes chose to run Antonelli during FP1 of his home Grand Prix. However the young Italian crashed heavily at Parabolica early on in FP1, but Russell still managed to get out on track for the afternoon session. "Firstly, I'm glad to see that Kimi was OK. It's never nice to see a crash that size and the first thing that matters is that he wasn't hurt." The British driver said after FP1.

"The mechanics did a great job to get the car ready for FP2. We got a good 30 minutes of running before and after the red flag so a big thank you to them. The car seems to be looking good. I had a couple of push lap efforts at the end of FP2 but was mainly focused on the long run. The resurfaced track meant that it looked to be ramping up quite a lot throughout the day. We need to be alive to it evolving over the rest of the weekend. We've got a lot of good data to go through, even though it wasn't the most productive Friday I've ever had on my side."