McLaren’s Briton rookie sets the pace with 1m 28.469s in Friday’s second practice session at Istanbul Park for the Turkish GP.
“I am happy with the performance so far, especially as the conditions today were not ideal. It is a shame that both sessions were interrupted, however the work we did was productive and we made some good progress,” said Lewis Hamilton.
Hamilton, again on speaking terms with teammate Fernando Alonso, lost time in the first session due to a small gearbox oil leak which made the clutch to slip. In the second session he found the MP4-22, “very, very good up until the red flag, then less good afterwards because the track had changed slightly to understeer. You had to drive differently.” Alonso had the same problem, but was confident that the Woking team, “have one of the strongest cars out there.” The Spaniard was sixth in the afternoon on 1m 28.947s.
Next to Hamilton was Ferari’s Kimi Raikkonen with 28.762s. Ferrari is also feeling confident, especially as Raikkonen was close behind Hamilton in the afternoon.
“I am reasonably happy with the way things went in the morning and a bit less so when it came to the afternoon. For some reason, probably a change in the wind direction, conditions were rather difficult and we will have to evaluate very carefully the data from the second session because it is easy to go down the wrong route. As for the two types of tyre, from what we have seen today, both work well but we will have to wait to do a more complete evaluation tomorrow. We have a good package which we must try and get the most out of,” noted Raikkonen.
Raikkonen and teammate Felipe Massa dominated the morning period, with the McLaren drivers 1.2secs adrift such was the pace of the scarlet machines, reported Planet-F1. Raikkonen finished 0.293secs behind Hamilton, with the Toyotas of Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli third and fourth, while Massa was fifth and Alonso sixth.
Times
01 L. Hamilton McLaren 1:28.469 28 laps
02 K. Räikkönen Ferrari 1:28.762 21 laps
03 R. Schumacher Toyota 1:28.773 23 laps
04 J. Trulli Toyota 1:28.874 28 laps
05 F. Massa Ferrari 1:28.884 25 laps
06 F. Alonso McLaren 1:28.947 24 laps
07 N. Rosberg Williams 1:28.995 27 laps
08 H. Kovalainen Renault 1:29.025 28 laps
09 A. Wurz Williams 1:29.093 27 laps
10 R. Kubica BMW 1:29.368 31 laps
11 D. Coulthard Red Bull 1:29.435 12 laps
12 G. Fisichella Renault 1:29.456 28 laps
13 N. Heidfeld BMW 1:29.792 30 laps
14 J. Button Honda 1:29.945 26 laps
15 R. Barrichello Honda 1:30.055 31 laps
16 T. Sato Super Aguri 1:30.104 27 laps
17 M. Webber Red Bull 1:30.315 25 laps
18 A. Davidson Super Aguri 1:30.530 24 laps
19 V. Liuzzi Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:30.702 24 laps
20 S. Vettel Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:30.801 16 laps
21 A. Sutil Spyker F1 1:31.153 32 laps
22 S. Yamamoto Spyker F1 1:31.175 32 laps