The seven-time world world champion never appeared that quick over one lap all day as he ended up 0.786s off the pace in FP1 and lagged behind his Mercedes te🐻ammate Valtteri Bottas in FP2. 

Hamilton finished fourth in both sessions at Losail and ended the day some 0.422s behind pacesetter Bottas in the more representative second🐻 practice which🔜 took place under the lights. 

After the conওclusion of FP2, Hamilton appeared somewhat downbeat as he struggled to explain his pace deficit. 

“I don’t even 🦩know how big the gap is but I’m off, so I’m definitely not close,” Hamilton said. 

🍎“At the moment, I’m a little 🌌bit slow, so need to figure that out tonight.” 

Hamilton suffered some minor front wing damage during FP1 after running wide at Tu🎃rn 15, but the Briton said he is enjoying the challenge of getting to grips with a new circuit. 

“Driving wise its okay, it’s all high-speed corners so it’s definitely pꦅhysical,” he♛ explained. 

“But the track’s quite nice, no reಌal issues. There’s a little bit of damage just from riding kerbs but nothing too serious obviously.” 

In contrast, Bottas enjoyed a stronger first day of running in Qa♍tar and dominated FP2, finishing over t♛wo-tenths clear of AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly during the soft tyre qualifying simulation runs. 

Th🍃e Finn was happy 🐓with his set-up direction and believes he is already close to hitting the “sweet spot” with his W12. 

“Today started nicely with the set-ups, so the balance was already pretty good in the first runs, only minor tweaks to be done f꧅or FP2 - so I would say that’s an ideal way to start a weekend on a new track,” Bottas said. 

“I thܫink the tꦑeam did a really good job on the estimation of the set-up and it’s not far off the sweet spot. 

“Obviously there’s always work to do, even driving wiꦓse, in two sessions you cannot find all the speed that is available, 🦄so for sure we’ll keep on working.”