Hamilton raring to go after rapid practice in Shanghai

With his McLaren sporting an upgrade, Hamilton finished quickest at the end of a changeable first practice session at the Shanghai International Circuit, and second to Mercedes’ Michael Schumacher in the later 90-minute run by 0.172 seconds.

With Hamilton at least looking strong, the 27-year-old certainly starts favourite to finish quickest in qualifying, even if he will not start from pole tomorrow.

That is because of a five-place grid penalty Hamilton will incur due to a change of gearbox that will take place today after a fault was discovered earlier in the week.

Despite that, after mastering the cold, damp, grey conditions, with temperatures hitting a maximum of 15 degrees centigrade, Hamilton said: “It’s been a great day.

“It stayed dry in the afternoon so we successfully got through our run programme. We’re still working away to improve the set-up, but the new bits on the car seem to be working. The guys back at the factory have done a great job.” After starting on pole in the opening two races in Australia and Malaysia, only to finish third in both, Hamilton said: “I’ll be changing the gearbox on my car before P3. It’s going to be a close qualifying session tomorrow. It’ll be a good battle.

“Hopefully we can start as high up the grid as possible because I think we’ll still be in the race and among the leading group. I love the challenge of coming through and gaining positions.”

It was a different tale for team-mate Jenson Button who struggled to get any heat into his tyres and subsequently finished three-quarters of a second behind Schumacher who posted a time of one minute 35.973sec in his Mercedes.

“It’s been a little bit of a difficult day for me,” said the 32-year-old. “I was trying to find a good set-up, but the cold weather made it difficult to understand the car because the tyres weren’t working perfectly. We don’t quite understand the tyre temperatures and can’t get them quite in the right area. If we make a set-up change and the tyre temp changes by five or ten degrees, then that change goes out the window. That’s something for us to sort out.”

Sandwiching Hamilton in second and Button in sixth were reigning champion Sebastian Vettel for Red Bull and team-mate Mark Webber, with Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg in his Mercedes fifth.

Force India’s Paul di Resta, who was forced to make way for test and reserve driver Jules Bianchi in the first session, finished a creditable eighth quickest in FP2. The Scot was a second down on Schumacher, but 0.225sec ahead of team-mate Nico Hulkenberg who had enjoyed the benefit of running in FP1.

Timo Glock, meanwhile, has been given the all-clear after hurting his hand in crashing into a tyre wall due to a fault with the nose box on his Marussia.

The German said: “There is damage to the car, as you might expect from the impact, but it is mainly cosmetic and the chassis is fine.

“A long night for the mechanics I think, so a frustrating outcome all round to an otherwise trouble-free day. Personally I am fine.”