"A big, big struggle with the balance of the car," claims Hamilton after opening day at the Hungaroring

Despite having posted several encouraging sector times across the opening practice sessions, Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton has revealed that he has suffered from balance issues behind the wheel of his SF-25 on Friday at the Hungaroring.

On the back of a competitive showing last time out at Spa-Francorchamps, Ferrari managed to carry over their fine form to the Hungaroring, at least Friday’s practice sessions indicated that the Scuderia might be in competition for top positions this weekend.

Charles Leclerc finished third in the opening session which the Monegasque managed to replicate in the second one-hour session, albeit he was unable to stay within touch to the field-leading McLarens.

His team-mate Lewis Hamilton looked to struggle to put together a flying lap, but his last effort in FP2 saw the seven-time F1 champion take sixth in the final classifications.

“We worked through the programme and made several changes to improve the balance. I’m still chasing grip, but we’re heading in a positive direction.

"There’s definitely more to extract ahead of Qualifying. The race runs showed higher tyre degradation than we’ve seen at recent events, so we’ve got some work to do overnight. There’s plenty of data to analyse, and I’m looking forward to getting back on track tomorrow.”

Asked to elaborate on his feelings behind the wheel of his Ferrari F1 car, Hamilton added: “Today was not a good day for me, a big, big struggle with the balance of the car and a lot different to the previous years I’ve been here.

“We tried two different things, we tried rectifying some of the balance problems we had in FP1. We changed the car for FP2 and it’s just inconsistent, very, very inconsistent balance from corner to corner, so you can’t say it’s just understeer, you can’t just say it’s oversteer.

“It’s just far from being on rails and very out of balance. But I think it’s probably something to do with maybe tyre temperatures or something, so we’re going to try to figure that out for tomorrow," concluded the seven-time F1 champion.