Hamilton experienced "confusing car behaviour and mixed performance"

Although he displayed promising performance in the opening session, Lewis Hamilton struggled for pace in the second one-hour practice on a day when he said everyone experienced "confusing car behaviour and mixed performance."

On the back of an impressive showing at last Sunday’s Monaco Grand Prix, Ferrari arrived at Barcelona with low expectations given the layout of the track.

However, the Scuderia impressed in the opening practice session at the Spanish Grand Prix as Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc took third and fourth.

The second practice saw the Ferrari pair struggle to stay at the sharp end of the field, with Leclerc ending up in P4 over half a second behind pace-setter Oscar Piastri. His team-mate Hamilton struggled even more over a single flying lap, and the seven-time world champion was left in P11.

“But you arrive on Friday and are hoping for a good day, and it doesn’t go well. Then you have a weekend in Monaco, where suddenly the car feels great," Hamilton added.

“Honestly, I thought the car was going to be good today. It wasn’t too bad in P1, but P2 was much worse. Naturally, that’s frustrating for everyone, but we had some problems, which meant we were losing some downforce.

Signing off with a word for his expectations for the rest of the weekend, Hamilton noted: "It was a challenging day, not just for us but across the grid, with everyone seeming to experience confusing car behaviour and mixed performance.

"On our side, we made changes in FP2 that will give us a direction to work in overnight when we’ll focus on breaking down the data and making improvements ahead of tomorrow."