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Lewis Hamilton believes McLaren is looking stronger than its Thursday practice positions suggest after it made a low-key start to the Monaco weekend.

The Woking squad has won the blue-riband Monaco event more times than any other team and is expected to feature prominently there again this year, but the team finished no higher than seventh in either practice session as it trailed its three chief rivals.

2008 winner Hamilton was the faster of the two McLaren drivers throughout the day and while he ended the second session 0.3s adrift of pacesetter Fernando Alonso, the Briton was happy with the MP4-25’s performance.

“Obviously we weren’t at the top of times, but the car was feeling good,” he told reporters.

“I love being on this track – the weather was quite good for the majority of the running – so a good feeling.

“I just love being at this circuit – it’s so much better than it was last year for me. The car just feels light years ahead of last year’s car.

“We have made some good steps forward with the set up. Everyone is quite competitive, but we should be okay.”

Hamilton, who has won on Monaco’s streets in the F3 Euroseries, GP2 and F1, is hopeful McLaren will be able to challenge for a top-three grid position when the track action resumes on Saturday.

“We’re looking pretty good for the weekend,” he added.

“Saturday’s going to be pretty tough; I hope the weather’s good for us.

“Really we have just got to keep our head’s down, do the homework tonight and hopefully we will be able to fight for the top three [in qualifying].”

Team-mate and world championship leader Jenson Button trailed Hamilton by over 0.3s in second practice and the Briton admits some of the changes the team made to his car between the two sessions hindered his single-lap pace.

Asked for his assessment of the day, Button replied: “It was alright.

“P1 was good; we did some good set-up changes and I felt very happy with the car.

“P2 we tried some different things and I think some of them weren’t an improvement so probably we lacked a bit of performance on the low fuel with the new tyres.

“But the long-run pace was good in the end. We went back on a few of the changes and the long-run pace was good, so I was very happy with that.

“Just overnight we have got to do a little bit of work to work out what’s best for lower fuel and new tyres.

“I think we understand where we have got to be as we were there this morning.”

Button said he hadn’t seen any surprises on the opening day and is optimistic McLaren will be slugging it out with its usual rivals come the weekend.

“I’m reasonably happy,” last year’s Monaco GP winner added.

“We don’t know where we stand; the Ferrari looks very quick, the Red Bull I’m sure is hiding its pace – so it’s the normal people at the front I think and hopefully we’re there on Saturday morning.”