Lewis Hamilton has warned his Mercedes team against too much experimentation at the Japanese Grand Prix after a strong Friday practice.

The seven-time F1 champion described FP1 at Suzuka as “the best session” he has experienced behind the wheel of the W15. That is a stark contract to two weeks ago in Melbourne, where Hamilton was full of complaints about the car.

He was fifth quickest at the end of that first Friday session and within half-a-second of pace-setter Max Verstappen. FP2 saw little running due to wet weather but that didn’t rain on the Briton’s parade.

The 39-year-old smiled as he declared: “It was a great session, it was a really good session for us. It was the best session that we’ve had this year, it’s the best the car has felt this year so far. So far, pretty positive.

“I was really excited because this is a circuit that every driver loves to drive. In the last couple of years, we’ve had a really difficult car and a difficult balance to drive here. And given the difficult last few races we’ve had, great work has been done this past week and we just seem to have hit the ground a bit more in a sweeter spot.

“So, I haven’t really made any changes since [FP1]. I think we’ve got a better platform or baseline to start from, so as long as we don’t make too many changes and eff it up… I think probably just stay where we are and hopefully we’ll get a [good weekend

“It has been performing better when it’s been slightly colder, but we’ve been doing a lot of test items to try and make that car a little bit more consistent when conditions are variable, so time will tell. FP2 was definitely a miss for everybody as we had some interesting things we wanted to try, but that’s the nature of Formula 1 sometimes.”

But, despite the positives, Russell does not think it will mean anything for how Mercedes will get on in qualifying on Saturday. On that topic, he added: “I think it’s going to be very challenging because it’s a clear one-lap tyre in qualifying. You can’t do multiple laps on the tyre.

“Most drivers may only have three sets for qualifying, four sets for qualifying, so you’ve got to be nailing those laps on every opportunity if you want any hope of getting to Q3 with two sets of new tyres. But I think you’re going to see quite high degradation, and that’s where the focus is going to be.