While on Thursday Mercedes admitted to taking a "wrong turn" on set-up ahead of the second session, early today things appeared to improve to the point where the Briton and teammate Valtteri Bottas actually set the pace at times during FP3.

However, as he struggled to get his tyres working properly so Hamilton's frustration began to show in his driving as he began to overdrive the car, making a number of costly mistakes in the process.

Indeed, as teammate Bottas appeared to get on top of the problem, there were echoes of Sochi where Hamilton suffered similar issues while his teammate went on to win the race.

At the end of Q2 having made a mistake which left him in the drop zone the Briton had one lap remaining in which to make the cut, however as well as complaining about traffic he insisted there was something wrong with his car.

As it happens the matter was taken out of his hands, Stoffel Vandoorne's crash at the Swimming Pool leaving the Briton and several other drivers unable to improve.

Speaking to reporters after the session, Hamilton admitted that such was his devastation he was unable to get out of his car.

"I get over things relatively quickly but I was devastated after the session," he told reporters. "To the point that I couldn't get out of the car.

"So much energy and work goes into these weeks, collectively as a team and individually, the way you prep yourself, and when you see the other cars able to get it to work, you can't for the life of you think why we weren't able to," he admitted. "It just feels like it's a mystery, because none of us currently understand it.

"At the moment it is a big unknown but a lot of analysis will go into trying to understand it. It is a tyre issue, I didn't get the grip from the tyres. We had a little bit of a similar scenario in Sochi, particularly on my side.

"It's a very, very strange thing, because I did the same thing as I do always when I leave the garage," he said. "But it's actually a case of going in and out throughout the lap, mostly under," he added, referring to the temperature range..

"It's not even just the fronts or rears, it could be one tyre, and another tyre, but in general all tyres were not in the window.

"It's difficult to say whether it's setting up the car, I don't know how it is for everyone else. But for us, obviously we don't understand it currently, how one car can have them working, and the other not.

"We have to work on it together," he continued. "I mean, I don't drive the car badly, and I'm not slow here. I'll work together collectively with the team to understand.

"I asked them just now in the meetings, things that I could do differently, let me know. They'll cross-examine both cars to understand if there's anything different.

"In the session I was like, 'Is my out lap quick enough?', for example. And it was virtually the same. Other things then perhaps come into it.

"Tomorrow I'll try everything I can to get up as high as possible," he insisted, "it's very hard to overtake, and we will have to take some risks. But as always, they will be weighed up."

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