Australia’s emerging Formula One driver Daniel Ricciardo was the best of the rest in practice for the Spanish Grand Prix on Friday as the Mercedes team continued their dominance.

A happy Lewis Hamilton topped the times in both sessions followed by teammate Nico Rosberg with Hamilton revelling in his form and his role as a settled senior member of the German outfit.

His speed, he said, showed he was in “a good place”.

“It really means a lot to me to feel that I am an integral part of this team and I love the huge energy that goes into the car and working with the engineers.

“It gives me a really special feeling. These guys, the engineers, they can do anything and it is up to us to help by ‘steering the bubble’ and me and Nico, we do it together.”

As he bids for his first Spanish Grand Prix triumph this weekend after three consecutive victories, Hamilton said he was aiming to grab the 34th pole of his career and make sure he can stay out of trouble with back-markers on a circuit where it is difficult to overtake.

“Pole is always important, but it is especially so here because it so difficult to get past people, especially those with a Mercedes engine!”

The smiling 29-year-old Briton added that he felt “pleasantly surprised” by the pace of his car in the afternoon practice after making changes to his set-up following a less-satisfying morning, when he was also fastest.

Rosberg, who leads the championship thanks to winning the season-opening Australian Grand Prix and then finishing second behind Hamilton three times, was almost half a second slower.

Defending four-time champion German Sebastian Vettel was reduced to only four laps early in the morning session after his Red Bull car was halted by electrical problems.

This required a replacement of the wiring loom and he missed the afternoon session entirely.

Hamilton clocked a best lap of one minute and 25.524 seconds before switching to an impressive demonstration of speed on a long ‘race spec’ run. Rosberg’s best time was 1:25.973.

Hamilton proved he has lost little of his massive performance advantage despite all rival teams arriving in Spain with a raft of upgrades for their cars.

Ricciardo wound up third fastest for Red Bull, nine-tenths of a second slower and the only man to be less than a second a lap adrift.

The Ferrari pairing of two-time champion and local hero Spaniard Fernando Alonso and Finn Kimi Raikkonen took fourth and fifth places, the Italian team bidding to win a race for the first time since Alonso triumphed on home soil a year ago.