Hamilton questions 'the point' of Spanish GP track changes

Lewis Hamilton has questioned 'what the point' of the new turn 10 configuration at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya is after topping Friday practice for the Spanish Grand Prix.

The radius at the corner has been softened into a faster, more sweeping left-hander more reminiscent of the layout used pre-2004 compared to the tight hairpin used in recent years.

After completing the first day of running on the revised layout, the seven-time world champion suggested racing will be affected by the change.

"I don’t really understand what the point was of the corner," said Hamilton. "It’s a lot, lot faster but I’ve not been in a racing position scenario so I can’t tell you if it will be better for racing or not.

“The one before was a dead stop. That was one other spot that you could potentially overtake but the straight was too short so I don’t know.

"Maybe it will allow us to follow closer during that last section and if it does that means we can race better down the main straight.”

Hamilton led a Mercedes one-two in the afternoon session in Spain but was six-tenths faster than Max Verstappen after his championship rival made a mistake on his qualifying simulation.

Despite the apparent ease with which Hamilton set his lap time, he revealed the difficulty of working the W12 into its operating window.

"We’ve had to work at it. It never comes that easy and I don’t think with this car it is ever going to be the case," he added.

“But we understand the car and we know which direction we need to go balance-wise so we have made some tweaks along the way.

"I don’t know if it got better for this session necessarily but there were some findings there so I’m hoping to have a better set up for tomorrow.”

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