Lewis Hamilton says he expects a close battle with Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg as they topped one session each in Brazil today.
Hamilton topped opening practice at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace by half a second but Rosberg responded in the second session, topping the timesheets by four-tenths of a second.
The pair looked to be well clear of the rest of the field with Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel the Silver Arrows’ nearest challenger.
When asked how is Friday went, Hamilton acknowledged Rosberg’s improved speed in recent races and expects the fight between them both to be ‘close’.
“Generally no problems out there,” he said. “I think it’s going to be close, that’s for sure. Nico’s driving really well so it’s going to be close.”
“I’m just focusing on the programme and trying to decide on the car. The set-up changes take quite a long time and I was stuck with a choice that I’d made from FP1 that probably wasn’t the right one but we’ll make it for FP3 and it should be good.”
Hamilton believes the bigger kerbs situated at turn two and turn eight means lap times at Interlagos are slightly slower.
“Turn two has a big, big kerb. It used to be flat through there but now you have a lift. Turn eight has a big kerb now, we used to just run over the whole of it and now you can’t.
“Those two corners on their own make a big difference. Before you could abuse the kerbs a little bit too much whereas now you go round them.”
Hamilton has never won the Brazilian Grand Prix in his previous eight attempts.
