A promising Friday in Imola saw the team show good pace across both single lap and long run performance.

The second part of the upgrade package debuted in Miami was on the car for the start of the weekend, with both drivers encouraged by the car's overall balance. Lewis and George ran the Medium and the Soft tyre in FP1; George ending the session second quickest.

For FP2, both drivers ran the Soft tyre once again but also sampled the Hard tyre. In a session where others did not show their full potential on the single lap, Lewis ended P4 with George P5. The team returns to the track tomorrow morning for FP3 followed by Qualifying later in the day.

Lewis Hamilton: It's been a good start to the weekend. We had a productive day and were able to run all three compounds. The balance of the car felt good, and I had a positive feeling out there. Several other teams look quick, in particular McLaren and Ferrari, but we're a lot closer than we have been so far this season. We're not getting ahead of ourselves though so let's see how tomorrow goes.

I am really grateful to everyone back at the factory for working so hard to bring these updates. We are seeing improvements in the car and our performance on track.

George Russell: The car was feeling great today and both Lewis and I were happy behind-the-wheel. We looked reasonably competitive and slightly closer to the front of the field than we looked in Miami. Come Qualifying tomorrow we will find out exactly where we stand in the pecking order. McLaren looked very strong along with Ferrari but hopefully we can find a bit more speed and get closer to them. As always, it will be fine margins.

The team has done a great job to bring the updates to the car so quickly. It definitely feels like a step forward at this point. It's great to see the motivation within the team despite having a few tough races recently.

Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director: We've had a productive day today. The car has been working well across the two sessions and we have been able to improve on the balance over the course of the day. The updates we have here all seem to be doing what we expect, which is encouraging, but the experience of the last few races has taught us that we have a fair size gap to close. We are hoping to close that gap progressively with developments over the next few events. There's still plenty that we can work on for both single lap and long run performance in the meantime. The gaps ahead aren't that big so we'll be looking hard to find a bit of additional speed overnight.

Check out our Friday gallery from Imola here.