Lewis Hamilton: "The lap times are shocking" © Sutton Images Enlarge Related Links Race:

Hungarian Grand Prix

Lewis Hamilton says his Mercedes' pace looks "shocking" after the early analysis of his lap times during practice for the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Hamilton was over 0.5s off Sebastian Vettel's fastest time in second practice, but is more concerned about his long run pace compared to the Red Bulls. Mercedes are at a disadvantage this weekend after missing out on the chance to sample Pirelli's new tyres at Silverstone last week, and Hamilton said the early signs were that his team has dropped off the front-running pace.

"We don't seem to have the pace that we had at the last race, but we'll make some changes tonight to try to understand it," he said. "We came into the weekend on the back foot trying to understand the tyres a bit so we did a lot of laps today and we've got a lot of information to look at and try to take into tomorrow.

"The Red Bulls look particularly quick. Of course fuel loads play a huge part but when we get to qualifying we are able to pull out a little bit more. But I was told on the same laps on the long runs Mark Webber was 0.8s ahead at some stages, so that's interesting..."

Temperatures are expected to rise at the Hungaroring over the weekend and Hamilton reckons that will make Mercedes' problems worse.

"The hotter it gets, the more pit stops people will be doing," he added. "It's going to be hard looking after these tyres. The car doesn't feel bad but the pace doesn't look great. The lap times are shocking, I haven't had a good look at them so I don't know how they compare to others, but it doesn't look great."