Lewis Hamilton says Mercedes Formula 1 teammate Valtteri Bottas looked “much more comfortable” with the W10 car through Friday’s practice running for the Chinese Grand Prix, leaving the team searchiꦯng answers for the Briton’s struggles.

Hamilton finished second iꦿn𓂃 the opening practice session before dropping to P4 in FP2, finishing over six-tenths of a second off the pace as Bottas topped the session.

Hamilton spoke about his struggles after the session, saying there was work to do for Mercedes𝐆 to understand why he was not yet at ease with the car at the Shanghai International Circuiꦛt.

“I was struggling with the car today, so we've got work to do, particularly on my side as Valtteri looked much more comfortable 😼in the car,” Hamilton said.

“We're going to wo🌜rk hard tonight to find some tweaks and hopefully come back stronger tomorrow. The car has the pace in it to compete at the front, we just need to find the right set-up.

“It is nice to see how close it is between us, Red Bull and Ferrari. As we expected, the Ferraris still look quicker on the straights, but overall it's ve💙ry c♛lose between the top cars and I anticipate that it is going to be the same tomorrow.”

Mercedes chief race engineer Andrew Shovlin echoed Hamilton’s thoughtsꦯ: “Valtteri has been fairly happy with the car all day🐟, just trying to put a bit more front end into it over the sessions.

“Lewis hasn't found the car as easy to work with an🧸d we need to do some investig🌄ation overnight to understand why.

“Ferrari and Red Bull are all doing decent times on long runs and short runs so it looks like it will be tight but we have some scope to improve t꧒hings overnight.”

While pace-setter Bo༒ttas was content with his performance, he too said there was room for improvement for Merc🦹edes heading into the remainder of the weekend, with just four-tenths of a second covering the top three teams in FP2.

“The day ended up ok, we made it to the top of the timesheets, but it is alwa𒁏ys very difficult to find a good balance through an entire lap on this track,” Bottas said.

“We got there step by step and th💎e car was feeling ok in the end, but ⛦it's only Friday and it's the next two days that count.

“F🍃errari still seem to be quicker than us on the straights, whereas we wer𝕴e better in most corners in FP2.

“We still have room for improvement, but we know the others are goin💞g to work hard on their cars as well, so we're going to have to wait and how much we can improve in relation to them.”