Lewis Hamilton knows he needs to “keep his head together” if he is to enjoy a successful debut weekend in Austria and close the gap on teammate Nico Rosberg in the hunt for the Formula One world title.

Up until a fortnight ago Hamilton had no idea as to the direction of turn one at the Red Bull Ring, such was his lack of knowledge of a track that last appeared on the Formula One calendar in 2003.

Whilst at least half of the 22-driver grid had sampled the circuit in one form or another coming into the weekend, be it years ago in F1, in another formula or via a track day, Hamilton was not one of them.

But come the conclusion to the two 90-minute practice sessions there was no doubt Mercedes’ Hamilton was in top form at the scenic venue. Although an old-style circuit, the facilities are world class courtesy of Red Bull’s billionaire owner Dietrich Mateschitz who purchased the facility in 2004.

The circuit itself, however, has remained untouched in the 11 years since the sport’s last visit, and that is to its credit.

At just over two miles long and with only nine corners, it still provides a challenge, and without doubt the quickest lap of the year.

Hamilton clocked a time of one minute 09.542secs, finishing almost four tenths of a second clear of Rosberg on Pirelli’s supersoft rubber, with the duo the only two drivers to dip below 70 seconds.

A happy Hamilton said: “It’s not been a bad first day considering I’ve never driven this track before, whereas others have.

“So I’m definitely pleased I got some good laps in, and I learned more and more about the track as the day wore on.

“At the moment I’m enjoying it. I really like it, it’s quite cool actually. “It’s fast, flowing, there are opportunities to overtake, and you can follow here as well, or at least it felt that way, so it’s going to be an interesting weekend.”

It is why Hamilton, who made a couple of errors in qualifying last time out in Canada to miss out on pole position to Rosberg, is not too concerned if the German makes it three in a row.

“I don’t think pole is going to be the most important thing because there is a long, long straight after turn two,” added Hamilton.

“I’ve got my eye on that, but I’d still like to start on pole, so that is my goal.”

As far as Hamilton is concerned, his biggest challenge this weekend is instead a mental one, to keep things clean and avoid the minor mistakes that occurred at Montreal’s Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

“It’s all about just keeping my head together and doing the laps Iknow I can do,” asserted Hamilton.

“In the first session with the laps we did I felt pretty comfortable, and with the more laps I did I was always finding time, new lines.”

Rosberg, however, appreciates he is not yet fully up to speed as he said: “There were a few things that weren’t ideal.”

“We were just really pushing on and trying to sort everything out, but I need to work hard, to work through everything and find some more lap time.”

As in the first practice session, when Rosberg edged Hamilton on the soft-compound rubber, Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso was again third best, but only just from Williams duo Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa.

Reigning four-times champion Sebastian Vettel and team-mate Daniel Ricciardo were sixth and eighth quickest on the timesheet.