Ferrari driver offer their verdict after tough opening day at Spa

Lewis Hamilton believes Ferrari has a solid foundation to build on after Friday practice for the Belgian Grand Prix, although the seven-time world champion admitted the Scuderia still has work to do if it wants to challenge at the front on Saturday.

Ferrari made an encouraging start to the weekend at Spa-Francorchamps, with Hamilton finishing second in the opening practice session, just behind Max Verstappen, while Charles Leclerc was third.

Hamilton then ended the second hour of representative running in fourth place, while Leclerc slipped to 11th after having one of his quickest laps deleted for exceeding track limits.

Hamilton's best FP2 lap of 1m46.691s left him 0.747s behind pace-setting Mercedes driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli, but the Briton remained optimistic after completing Ferrari's planned programme.

"We got through a good amount of work today and gathered plenty of useful information across both sessions," Hamilton said. "The balance of the car is generally good, but there are a few areas where we know we can improve, particularly through the middle sector."

The Ferrari driver revealed that the team has already identified its main weakness and will focus overnight on understanding why it is losing time through the central part of the lap.

"Tonight we'll go through all the data with the engineers, refine the set-up and look for those small gains that can make the difference ahead of qualifying."

Hamilton also acknowledged that Ferrari faces stiff competition from several rivals, with Red Bull, Mercedes and McLaren all showing impressive pace during Friday's running.

"The others look really strong," he said. "Obviously Red Bull look really strong. Mercedes picked up a lot of pace in the sessions. McLaren were looking good as well, so I really don't know.

"As I said, the car feels pretty decent but we're lacking a little bit in the middle sector for some reason. We're just looking into why that is and see if we can pick that up tomorrow. I love driving this track, it's amazing."

Leclerc echoed his team-mate's assessment that Ferrari still has room to unlock more performance before the competitive sessions begin.

"We did a lot of work over the course of the day, and there is still some room for improvement in terms of our competitiveness," the Monegasque said.

"We will fine-tune our setup ahead of tomorrow and work on finding some more lap time for qualifying," concluded Leclerc.