"Hope that continues in following races": Lewis Hamilton happy with Mercedes performance in Japanese GP

Although Hamilton qualified seventh and George Russell ninth for Sunday's Suzuka race, the seven-time champion was encouraged by the W15's improved handling and the fact that they nearly halved their deficit to pole position around the high-speed track compared to the previous visit in September, when they trailed Red Bull by a full second.

Hamilton, who out-qualified Russell for the first time in four attempts this season, described Friday's sole dry practice session as the best of Mercedes' difficult season thus far and praised the team for the work done on setting up the inconsistent W15 since the previous race in Australia.

"I was giving it everything. The team did a really great job this past week making adjustments to our set-up - this is actually the first weekend I've not gone crazy with set-up and am not testing a bunch of things, so I'm back to a bit more normal," Hamilton said to Sky Sports.

"I think we've got the car into a much nicer working window and so it's been really enjoyable driving, it's just the guys [ahead] are just a little bit faster. We were a second or just over a second off last year to the Red Bull and seven [sic, six] tenths is better. Maybe if we had done something a little bit different maybe we could have been another tenth faster, maybe, but other than that that was everything," he added.

Talking about if the Mercedes had found a better direction to go in with the W15, Hamilton said, "I personally believe so, yeah. What we have noticed is track to track it has been really, really hard to get the set-up right and it has been so far out each time. In some places it has felt like nothing we can do gets the car in a sweet spot. But this weekend it's much more in the sweet spot and so I hope that continues in the following races, then we've just got to add performance." (ANI)