Hamilton hails 'great day'

Lewis Hamilton said that McLaren had a "great day" after he set the fastest time of Friday's practice sessions for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Hamilton headed a McLaren one-two in FP2 as he beat team-mate Jenson Button by 0.199s. Rivals Red Bull and Ferrari both had trouble with Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso crashing, while Mark Webber and Felipe Massa also spun. Hamilton said that the pace of the car was good on high fuel, but that more importantly he had not made any major mistakes.

"I think it was a great day for us," Hamilton said. "Our long run pace doesn't seem too bad. The car feels a lot better than it did at the last race (India) - so I really hope I'll be able to keep that going throughout the remainder of the grand prix weekend ... I kept it out of the wall, kept it out of trouble and I'm quite happy with it."

Hamilton also said that the life he was getting out of the Pirelli tyres was a further cause for optimism.

"The track just got better and better today, so I slowly chipped away at the set-up. The tyres are behaving well - at the last race I had degradation and didn't have the pace, so it feels much better this weekend. That's a real positive for me. When you come through a Friday without any problems, it definitely makes you feel confident for the rest of the weekend."

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