Hamilton: We're not spectacular here at Paul Ricard

It was strange to see Hamilton sit out FP1 at Circuit Paul Ricard on Friday, making way for Mercedes reserve Nyck de Vries to take over the Mercedes cockpit as a regulatory requirement for young drivers to complete at least two FP1 sessions this season. Hamilton chose France.

Needless to say, missing a session always puts a driver on the backfoot, Hamilton included.

Nevertheless, the seven-time F1 World Champion praised De Vries for the programme the reserve adhered to while he watched from the Mercedes garage.

At the end of the day, Hamilton reported: "We still have a lot of work to do, we're not spectacular here and I don't know why, so hopefully overnight, we can make a little bit of a step forward as we're further behind than what we anticipated for this weekend.

"We need to dig deep into the data, but it looks like were lacking downforce today. It wasn't the best session for me, mostly because I missed the first one.

"I tried to get up to speed, but it was very hot here and there are a lot of slow laps so overall, I think I did alright," ventured Hamilton who ended the day fifth fastest, a couple of tenths shy of his teammate.

In the sister car, George Russell of course had two full sessions, ending day one fourth fastest, three-quatres of a second shy of Carlos Sainz's top time in the Ferrari.

On Friday evening, Russell reported: "It was quite enjoyable to be back out there at this track as it's quite a fun one in certain aspects. Some teams struggled more than others with the high temperatures.

"We only did five consecutive laps but we're also probably a bit further off the pace than what we had hoped for. We have work to do tonight here at the track and back at the factories. There's a lot to go over and we need to make sure we can optimise our pace for qualifying.

"From the running today, it looks like we're finding time but all the other teams keep bringing updates too, and the whole grid moves forward.

"So, although we're finding time, our competitors do as well. And we need to look at the data to see if our upgrades are working as sometimes it's not as simple as just seeing it on the lap charts, explained Russell.

Mercedes trackside boss Andrew Shovlin summed up the garage perspective: "George was evaluating some update parts through the first session and wasn't particularly happy with the balance of the car but managed to get it closer to his liking in the afternoon."

Of Hamilton's one session, Shovlin explained: "This is the first time that one of the race drivers has had to sit out an FP1 session and Lewis had his work cut out trying to recover the lost time - he wasn't particularly happy with where the car was and we need to work on that overnight.

"But we've got a pretty good idea of where we want to go on setup. For one reason and another, we didn't get as much work done on high fuel as we'd have liked so we don't really know how we compare to RedBull and Ferrari but we do at least look closer to them than to the midfield.

"We're not expecting to be on their pace, both those teams look like they are very strong on a single lap, especially Ferrari but hopefully we can get a bit closer in the race on Sunday," added Shovlin.