Lewis Hamilton is upbeat about his chances in Abu Dhabi this weekend after topping the timesheets in Practice Two.
McLaren proved to be the team to beat on Friday as Jenson Button set the pace in the first practice before Hamilton took over in the second.
The Brit clocked a 1:39.586 to edge his team-mate by 0.199s as the sun set over the Yas Marina circuit.
"It was a really positive day for me. The car feels good - our long-run pace doesn't feel too bad and we seem to be quite competitive," Hamilton said.
"The car feels a lot better than it did at the last race - so I really hope I'll be able to keep that going throughout the remainder of the grand prix weekend.
"The track just got better and better today, so I slowly chipped away at the set-up. The tyres are behaving well - at the last race I had degradation and didn't have the pace, so it feels much better this weekend. That's a real positive for me.
"When you come through a Friday without any problems, it definitely makes you feel confident for the rest of the weekend."
But while Hamilton was satisfied with his day's work, his team-mate Button he was struggling with balance issues.
"I'm still not entirely happy with the balance - although I'm confident we'll get to the bottom of it. Nonetheless, the pace of the car is good - Lewis was very quick today - and our long-run pace is very good.
"I was playing around with overtaking on my long run, but I still reckon it'll be difficult to overtake people in the DRS zones.
"So I think it's going to be a bit of a struggle to make moves stick in the race - which means it's going to be important to qualify up at the front.
"It's tricky around here, but we made some good progress here this afternoon and evening."
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