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 teammate Valtteri Bottas in FP2. 

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

After the conclusion 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 th🐼e moment, I’m a little bit slow, so need to figure that out tonight.” 

𒁏Hamilton suffered some minor front wing damage during FP1 after running wide at Turn 15, but the Briton said he is enjoying the challenge of getting to grips with a new circuit. 𓆏;

“Driving wise its okay, it’s all high-speed cornersಌ so it’s definitely physical,” he explained. ౠ;

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

In contrast, Bottas enjoyed a stronger first day of running in Qatar and do🎃minated FP2, finishing over two-tenths clear of AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly during the soft tyre qualifying simulation runs. 

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

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

“I think the team did a really good job on the estimation of the set-up and it’s not far off the sweet sꩲpot. 

“Obviously there’s always work to do, even driving wise, in two sessions you c🥂annot find all the speed that is available, so for sure we’ll keep on working.”