Hamilton praises team for repair effort

The Briton damaged both ends of his McLaren went he spun into the tyres in the wet first session, but was able to rejoin in time for the end of afternoon practice.

"The guys have done an incredible job," said Hamilton. "Obviously I damaged the car a lot this morning. I was a little bit upset with myself, just because when you see the guys working so hard putting the car together during the week - and then you get there and do only a few laps and then total the car...

"It was very, very slippery, and what was actually a relief was when I came back and they explained to me how it occurred - I hit the limiter and I shifted and spun the wheels, so had an oversteer moment, tried to correct it and didn't correct it well enough. When I was on the grass, I was just a passenger and pretty much took all four corners off.

"So a huge, huge amount of work for the guys, and they were just phenomenal. They did an awesome job."

Hamilton only managed 10 laps on a dry track after the repairs, but was glad to have gathered some data at least.

"Generally it felt good to get back in, and it's good to get back out and overcome the difficulty you had in the morning," he said. "At least I've got something to work on now."

But he admitted that in the circumstances he had little chance to get a feeling for McLaren's blown diffuser, which it has reintroduced this morning after an abortive debut in Britain.

"To be honest, I haven't really noticed a huge difference," he said of the car's handling with the new diffuser. "I felt something, but it wasn't like 'wow, this is huge'.

"There's potential there. For me, it feels very similar to what it did at Silverstone. But it's not bad. If we keep working on it, maybe it will be even better."