Lewis Hamilton has suggested he is on the back foot heading into the Mexico City Grand Prix as he targets his second race victory of the season.
The seven-time champion prevailed on Saturday in qualifying, besting former team-mate George Russell to the top of the timesheet.
It marked Hamilton's first pole position in over three years, and his first with the Ferrari team.
But while he was able to showcase strong pace over a single lap, Hamilton is less confident about his prospects for the race due to a lack of running in practice.
Hamilton was forced to pull to the side of the track during FP2 with a power unit issue, which he feels has hindered his preparation for the race.
"In general, I don't think this year I've had a good long run," Hamilton told media including RacingNews365.
"We've either pushed our short laps too long and then got into the long run, but I've not had one good long run where it's consistent and got the balance right.
"Coming into this weekend, we met up on Wednesday. We went over all the areas that we can improve on, different approaches, things that we learned from the last race.
"We're like, 'We're going to make sure we get a good long run in this weekend.' Big, big focus. And then the car stopped!"
Hamilton under pressure to keep hold of P1
Having missed out on the long runs in FP2, Hamilton is unsure what configurations he needs for the race.
The 41-year-old stated he will "guess" heading into the grand prix as he seeks his second win with Ferrari.
"I just watched the rest of the session where everyone was pounding around and getting those long runs in.
"I don't know how the car will behave on the long run on heavy fuel, and I also don't know the settings that I'm going to need.
"So those are the things I'm going to have to kind of guesstimate tonight and take my... we'll take our best guess to hopefully get the car in the right window for tomorrow.
"Very, very challenging. It's obviously a really long way down to Turn 1."
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