Antonelli claims his "car gave me more confidence" compared to recent races

On the back of five tough races, Andrea Kimi Antonelli claimed that his "car gave me more confidence" on the opening day of this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix.

It was a tough outing last time out for Mercedes at Spa-Francorchamps. So severe were the issues that the Brackley-based outfit elected to revert to the pre-Montreal-specification suspension configuration for the last round ahead of the summer break.

The aim is to find out whether the kinematic upgrades are to blame for their recent lack of performance.

The opening day at the Hungarian Grand Prix did not fully show what Mercedes will be able to target at in Mogyoród, but the drivers George Russell and Andrea Kimi Antonelli sounded a positive note when assessing their first two practice sessions at the Hungaroring.

Speaking of his day behind the wheel of his W16, Antonelli stated: “I’m feeling quite happy after today’s running. The car gave me more confidence than I have felt in recent races, and I feel like I was able to extract more lap-time.

"We’re still missing a bit of pace compared to those at the very front, but this is hopefully a good platform on which to build. I had a lot of traffic on my best lap on low fuel so we could have been higher up on the timing screens.

"The long run looked competitive though so definitely a good feeling going into the weekend. With all that said, Friday doesn’t count for anything. We know how important track position is around here so we will have to do a good job come Qualifying tomorrow afternoon.

Pressed on to share his expectations for the rest of the weekend, the Bologna-born driver said: "The field is tight, and we will have to be at our best to give ourselves a good opportunity of scoring solid points on Sunday.

"That is certainly our aim. We will work hard overnight and look at what improvements we can make ahead of Saturday," Antonelli concluded.