Lewis Hamilton wins Hungary GP

Lewis Hamilton somehow blocked out the twin distractions of a qualifying controversy and in-fighting at his McLaren team to win the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Hamilton started from pole position after his teammate Fernando Alonso was demoted five grid positions for obstructing the rookie Englishman in qualifying.

Alonso had seemingly snatched pole with a last-gasp flying lap but the race stewards judged that he had acted improperly in delaying Hamilton and denying him a chance to respond.

Hamilton took full advantage of his improved grid position, driving a mistake-free race to hold Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen to second and claim a victory that extends his driver's championship lead to seven points.

If history is anything to go by Hamilton will now go on to win the driver's title, only twice in the last 15 years has a driver leading the championship at this stage been beaten to the crown.

The 22-year-old was understandably delighted on the podium; his third grand prix win was undoubtedly his most important so far.

Nick Heidfeld of BMW was third with Alonso fourth just ahead of Poland's Robert Kubica in the other BMW.

The final point-scorers were German Toyota driver Ralf Schumacher in sixth, Nico Rosberg of Williams in seventh and Heikki Kovalainen of Renault in eighth.

Felipe Massa, currently fourth in the championship, had an unhappy weekend, finishing 13th.

The race started in bright sunshine and Hamilton made a clean getaway ahead of normally fast-starting Heidfeld.

On this occasion Heidfeld struggled off the grid and was immediately passed by Raikkonen who slotted in behind the leader.

Back in sixth Alonso made a poor start, soon finding himself back in eighth place when Robert Kubica and Red Bull's Mark Webber forced past him in the opening lap.

Alonso fought back but was soon stuck behind Ralf Schumacher who defended his fifth place expertly.

Meanwhile Sakon Yamamoto was the first man to drop out of the race. The Japanese Spyker driver lost control at turn 11, prematurely ending his first grand prix appearance of the season.

After 15 of the 70 laps Hamilton had established a lead of nearly five seconds from Raikkonen.

The leaders made their first pit stops five laps later with Raikkonen making up over a second on the McLaren man.

Perhaps spurred on by a strong Finnish contingent in the grandstands, Raikkonen continued to gain on Hamilton and the gap was down to one second by the halfway point.

Honda's Jenson Button, winner of this race a year ago, struggled towards the back of the field on this occasion.

But the Briton will still have been bitterly disappointed when he had to retire from the race after a mechanical failure at the halfway point.

Raikkonen made his second and final stop on his 47th lap, moving to the super-soft option tyres.

Hamilton stayed out for another three laps and the strategy paid off, he eventually emerged from the pits with a four-second lead.

Behind the front two Alonso had finally edged past Schumacher but he could not quite manage to pass Heidfeld and had to settle for fourth.

Raikkonen put Hamilton under intense pressure throughout the closing stages of the race but the 22-year-old showed great maturity to hang on and win by just over a second.

It was McLaren's 154th grand prix win and their sixth of the season. However the English team's joy will be tinged by the reality that, unless they win an appeal against the action the FIA has taken against them for the qualifying debacle, they will not be awarded any constructor's championship points from the race.

Mclaren

McLaren is one of the oldest teams on the Formula 1 circuit and since the time they have been formed, the most successful. But the going has not been exactly the easiest over the last few years.

Founded in 1963 by Bruce McLaren, they have won 11 Drivers' Championship titles and 8 Constructors' titles. Their most successful years have been 1974, 84, 85, 88, 89, 90, 91 and 98 when they won both titles in the same year. Over the years, McLaren has employed some of the best drivers of their times including Denny Hulme in the late 1960s, Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost and Gerhard Berger in the 1980s and Mika Hakkinen in the later part of the '90s.

The MP4 chassis of the McLaren F1 team that has been in use for almost 25 years now came about when a struggling team known as Project 4, sponsored by Marlboro was brought together with the McLaren team. At the time (in the early 1980s), McLaren had funds and a set up to nurture a good team while Project 4 had a good engine, designer and a new concept of fibre-glass body but no money. The term MP4 in fact stands for "Marlboro Project 4" but has over the years been conveniently dubbed as "McLaren Project 4".

The last season was a bit of an up and down one for them. They were always in contention and near the top of the pack, but lack of reliability prevented them from going any further. For the first time in ten years, McLaren failed to win a race through the season. But hopes are high for 2007 with the signing of Fernando Alonso and the new Mercedes engine.

Team Boss: Ron Dennis

Races: 627

Race Wins: 153

Constructor's Championships: 8

Engine: Mercedes V8 FO 108T

Chassis: MP4-22 - McLaren

Suspension: Koni

Brakes: Carbon discs

Tyres: Bridgestone

Transmission: Semi-auto 7 speeds

Other:
Engine power: Over 18,500 rpm
GearBox: 7-speed unit + reverse
Weight: 605 kgs (including driver, camera and ballast)
Dimensions: Approx. 4800 mm x 1800 mm x 950 mm
Valves: 4 valves per cylinder; pneumatic valve system
Total displacement: -


Team Personnel:
Team manager: Ron Dennis
Designer: Mike Coughlan
Chief engineer: Norbert Haug
Drivers: Fernando Alonso (Spain), Lewis Hamilton (Great Britain)
Test drivers: Pedro de la Rosa, Gary Paffett

Alonso weathers the storm to win Nurburgring thriller

Double world champion Fernando Alonso brilliantly won the European Grand Prix as confusion reigned at the Nurburgring.

Alonso's third win of the season leaves him just two points behind McLaren teammate Lewis Hamilton in the overall drivers' standings.

The Spaniard made the most of his opportunity when torrential rain and car failures combined to leave him in a straight fight with Ferrari's Felipe Massa.

Alonso passed Massa superbly in the closing stages to win by eight seconds from the Brazilian, Australian Mark Webber was third for Red Bull Racing.

Massa's teammate Kimi Raikkonen started from pole position but his poor record on the German circuit continued as he was forced to retire after 34 laps.

It was also a tough weekend for leader Hamilton who finished ninth.

A bad crash in qualifying left Hamilton starting from tenth on the grid and his record run of nine podium finishes in nine races was always likely to end after he spun off the track early on.

Hamilton's Mclaren was eventually lifted back onto the track by a crane but the rookie rejoined the race at the back of the field, a lap behind and with too much ground to make up.

Alex Wurz of Williams was fourth ahead of Red Bull's David Coulthard in fifth with Nick Heidfeld sixth for BMW.

The final point-scorers were Heidfeld's teammate Robert Kubica and Heikki Kovalainen of Renault who were seventh and eighth respectively.

The race started in a sprinkling of rain, Massa darted past Alonso into second place while Kubica and Heidfeld collided just behind.

Heidfeld, the German racing in front of his home crowd, came off worse and had to go into the pits for extensive repairs.

Then the heavens opened. Track conditions quickly became treacherous and the need for wet weather tyres became obvious.

All the cars had to crowd into the pitlane except for debutant Markus Winkelhock of the Spyker team.

The 27-year-old German had made an instant decision when the rain began and headed into the pits as the race started.

Incredibly, as all kinds of havoc broke out around him, Winkelhock found himself in the lead by over 30 seconds.

The deluge was so torrential that even the wet tyres could not provide sufficient grip.

Hamilton, Scott Speed of Torro Rosso, Nico Rosberg of Williams, Adrian Sutil of Spyker, Jenson Button of Honda and Speed's teammate Vitantonio Liuzzi each slid off the track, the first four all at the opening corner.

Sutil, Rosberg, Speed, Liuzzi and Button were all out of the race, the Briton later describing the first section of the circuit as a "lake".

As the complete chaos threatened to turn into farce the race was stopped for twenty minutes so order could be restored.

Twenty minutes later bright sunshine had broken out as the race resumed behind the safety car.

Winkelhock led from Massa and Alonso as the cars went round the track in a procession for four laps but when the racing began the Spyker man soon began to slip back.

The cars began to change back to dry tyres after 12 laps as the race reverted to some kind of normality. Winkelhock's big day ended in misery after he was forced to retire by an engine failure.

Raikkonen had restarted in seventh place but he was soon tucked in behind Massa and Alonso as the three leaders began to open up a gap from Mark Webber in fourth place.

Further back, Heidfeld, perhaps smarting from his earlier troubles, made an aggressive move to overtake Ralf Schumacher.

The two cars touched sending Schumacher's Toyota into the gravel and out of the race.

Raikkonen was the next man to go, his Ferrari letting him down on lap 34 and leaving Massa and Alonso to fight for the victory.

The rain returned with eight laps remaining and after the cars changed back to wet tyres Alonso began a relentless attack on Massa's lead. Again and again the Spaniard tried to pass and Massa had to defend desperately.

Eventually Alonso squeezed through around the outside of the Ferrari, the two cars briefly making contact before Massa was forced to yield and settle for second place.

Stepney hits back against Ferrari

Former Ferrari employee Nigel Stepney has turned the legal spotlight on the Italian team after he was forced to flee the country earlier this month.

Stepney, formerly head of performance development, was sacked after being accused of leaking secrets to McLaren.

But lawyers are investigating whether Ferrari were involved in the high-speed car chases that dogged the Briton.

Ferrari could be the subject of criminal proceedings if evidence suggests they have been spying on him.

Stepney told the Observer newspaper that he had been followed by more than one car, with Italian plates, and when he cornered one of them, the men inside refused to speak to him.

His lawyer Sonia Bartolini told Italian newspaper La Repubblica: "At the right time we'll draw our conclusions. At the moment we're trying to trace the car plates to the subjects that followed Stepney, and then we'll file a complaint.

"Obviously, if it is confirmed that Ferrari are behind this, it would be very serious. It's one thing to keep an employee under control at the workplace, but it's quite another to spy on him at his home and to follow him at night.

"If that was the case, the Maranello [Ferrari] people will be called to answer for it in court."

Ferrari's legal representatives have launched an investigation into alleged espionage and sabotage involving Stepney and McLaren chief designer Mike Coughlan.

McLaren have been summoned by the FIA, Formula One's governing body, to an extraordinary meeting of the World Motor Sport Council to explain how Coughlan came to be in possession of a 780-page document relating to Ferrari's 2007 car.

An FIA spokesman would not comment when asked by the BBC to confirm a report in La Repubblica that McLaren chief Coughlan had shown the documents to several colleagues at McLaren.

The newspaper quoted from what it claimed to be the affidavit Coughlan had submitted to Ferrari as part of legal proceedings brought by the team against him in the UK.

According to the newspaper, Coughlan said in the affidavit that all his McLaren colleagues distanced themselves from the documents and advised him to destroy them.

La Repubblica said Coughlan had not confirmed that his source for the documents was Stepney, who has denied supplying them. The report said Coughlan had only said he had received them via a courier service.

McLaren could be docked points or even disqualified from the world championship this year if they are found guilty under article 151c of F1's International Sporting Code.

This deals with "any fraudulent conduct, or any act prejudicial to the interests of any competition, or to the interests of motor sport generally".

McLaren issued a statement last week expressing their "extreme disappointment" at being charged and denying all the allegations.

They say the dossier at the centre of the controversy was solely Coughlan's responsibility.

"The documents and confidential information were only in the possession of one currently suspended employee on an unauthorised basis and no element of it has been used in relation to McLaren's Formula One cars," the statement said.

But Ferrari lawyer Massimiliano Maestretti told RAI television there was still some uncertainty over who knew abouyt the documents and when some were delivered to Coughlan.

"The McLaren statement mentioned the documents were received at the end of April," he was quoted as saying, "but we have proof that there were more later than that with a May date."

Hamilton back in the groove

Lewis Hamilton's British Grand Prix disappointment was short-lived as the McLaren ace topped the testing times at Spa-Francorchamps on Tuesday.

On the first day of the first official Formula One test at the Belgian circuit, McLaren star Hamilton finished 0.4 seconds quicker than Robert Kubica in his BMW Sauber.

With the 7.004-kilometre circuit revamped in preparation for the grand prix in September after last year's absence from the calendar, all 11 teams took to the track.

Championship leader Hamilton, who finished third in Sunday's race at Silverstone, completed the most laps - 83 - with his best a time of one minute 46.613secs.

The Ferrari of Felipe Massa was third-quickest, but just over 0.8secs slower than Hamilton, who will make way for Fernando Alonso on Wednesday.

The Toyota of Ralf Schumacher was over a second down, followed by Renault test driver Nelson Piquet Jnr, with David Coulthard sixth for Red Bull Racing, although technical gremlins blighted his day.

The remaining drivers comprised Nico Rosberg (Williams), Tonio Liuzzi (Toro Rosso), James Rossiter (Super Aguri), Christian Klien (Honda) and Spyker's Guido van der Garde, who brought up the rear three seconds off the pace.

We made Ferrari look good says McLaren boss

McLaren boss Ron Dennis believes that a poor weekend from his team at Magny-Cours made Ferrari appear faster than they actually were.

Ferrari drivers Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa finished first and second respectively in Sunday's French Grand Prix and the Italian team have welcomed the result as a sign that recent technical upgrades have significantly improved their pace.

However, Dennis does not believe that Ferrari have gained a speed advantage over his team who will now look to reassert themselves in next weekend's British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

"We flattered them [Ferrari] this weekend," said Dennis. "They did a good job, and probably improved the car a little bit. But we made them look a lot better than they were. Hopefully, we will demonstrate that at Silverstone."

McLaren never found the ideal set-up for the idiosyncrasies of the Magny-Cours circuit and were also hindered by Spaniard Fernando Alonso starting tenth on the grid after suffering a gearbox problem in qualifying.

Alonso could only recover to finish seventh and his British rookie teammate Lewis Hamilton finished third, half a minute behind the Ferraris.

But as Hamilton remains top of the driver's championship and McLaren are 25 points clear in the constructor's standings, Dennis is not too disheartened by Ferrari's French dominance.

"Overall, it was damage limitation from beginning to end," he said, reflecting on the weekend's events.

"Obviously we're delighted that Kimi won over Massa. It means he is only a couple of points closer to Lewis, and didn't close the gap that much, even on Fernando.

"If this is going to be our worst race then we'll be comfortable with that. And if we hadn't had such good races before, we wouldn't be where we are in the world championship. So we've got to put it down to the fact you can't win every race, and this is one we didn't win.

"But we've won here previously, and there is no reason that we can't win at Silverstone. You know, as history has shown, when you have got a good lead in the world championship, you have got to be pragmatic about your races.

"Lewis did a really solid job at finishing third. It's his eighth podium position, and there is no luck that gives you that sort of result. For me, I loved Fernando's fight; I think he was fighting from beginning to end, and he got the most out of a difficult situation. And that's motor racing."

Hamilton remains confident

Lewis Hamilton remains confident for next weekend’s British Grand Prix despite losing out to the two Ferraris in France on Sunday.

The McLaren driver who finished over 30 seconds behind race winner Kimi Räikkönen insisted his result at Magny-Cours was not a cause for any concern.

“I think you can’t win every race and the most important thing is that you are consistent which I think we are,” he told reporters after the race.

“I think here they (Ferrari) made a good improvement, a good step forward at Silverstone, and even we made a step forward, but this weekend when you are behind people it is a lot harder to show true pace.

However, Hamilton who still leads the Drivers’ Championship, stressed traffic had also played a significant role in Sunday’s race.

“I don’t think they were as quick as they looked, not that much faster; I don’t know what times they were doing, but there was obviously a big gap and traffic and strategy had a lot to do with that. I am sure we can bounce back at the next race, without a doubt.”

The 22-year-old rookie reiterated that his eight consecutive podium finishes was still way beyond his wildest expectations.

“I think and I keep saying that I didn’t even expect to finish on the podium in my first race let alone eight races in the season so I am very happy with the job that I have done and the job that the team have done.

He added: “I think that going into my first Silverstone Grand Prix in the team that I have always wanted to drive for and leading the world championship is one of the greatest feelings that a driver can have.”

Massa puts Ferrari on pole as Alonso hits trouble

Ferrari's Felipe Massa will start Sunday's French Grand Prix from pole position, with the McLaren of Lewis Hamilton alongside him and team mate Kimi Raikkonen right behind.

World champion Fernando Alonso, however, is only tenth on the provisional grid after his car was struck down with gearbox problems early in the final phase of qualifying, preventing him from setting a time.

With the Spaniard out of the running, what looked set to be an epic climax to the fight between silver and red ultimately failed to materialise - Massa, Hamilton and Raikkonen were all unable to improve their positions after their first Q3 runs.

Thus Massa retained pole, with a lap of 1m 15.034s, while Hamilton shaved down from 1m 15.185s to 1m 15.104s, which was not sufficient to affect his front row position after he lost a little momentum in Turn 15, and Raikkonen remained third on 1m 15.257s.

Behind them, Giancarlo Fisichella bumped Robert Kubica from fourth with a lap of 1m 15.674s for Renault, only to have the BMW Sauber driver retake the position with 1m 15.493s in the two teams’ war over third place in the constructors’ championship.

Renault’s Heikki Kovalainen once again backed team mate Fisichella strongly with sixth place on 1m 15.826s, pipping Nick Heidfeld who was sufficiently recovered from Friday’s back problems to lap his BMW Sauber in 1m 15.900s. Jarno Trulli was Toyota’s only runner to make Q3, and will start eighth on 1m 15.935s, and Nico Rosberg once again got his Williams through for ninth place and 1m 16.328s.

Ralf Schumacher celebrated his birthday with 11th place on 1m 15.534s, albeit as the first not to get through to Q3, and will have former BMW Williams team mate Jenson Button for company on row six, the Englishman lapping his Honda in 1m 15.584s. Button’s team mate Rubens Barrichello was 13th on 1m 15.761s, ahead of Red Bull’s Mark Webber on 1m 15.806s. Toro Rosso’s Scott Speed (1m 16.049s) and David Coulthard (no time, after not running in Q2 due to gearbox problems) were 15th and 16th.

Tonio Liuzzi was the first faller in Q1, lapping his Toro Rosso in 1m 16.142s to lose out to Barrichello by two-thousands of a second. Alex Wurz was 18th for Williams on 1m 16.241s, followed by Takuma Sato and Anthony Davidson for Super Aguri (1m 16.244s and 1m 16.366s respectively) and the Spykers of Christijan Albers and Adrian Sutil (1m 17.826s and 1m 17.915s before his car rolled to a halt in Turn 9).

Driver quotes after Friday Practice at Magny-Cours

Ferrari topped the lap times during Friday’s Free Practice at Magny-Cours but perhaps the biggest surprise was the Toro Rossos of Scott Speed and Vitantonio Liuzzi, who posted the third and fifth quickest times.

Felipe Massa: "Today we were quick and we have found a good balance right from the first few laps in this morning's session. I think the work which culminated in the test session at Silverstone is beginning to produce results. We were competitive and I think that can continue for the rest of the weekend. The harder tyre seems more consistent in terms of performance, while the softer one seems to give more grip, which will be useful for qualifying."

Kimi Räikkönen: "I would say that this was quite a positive day. We worked well and I think we can be competitive this weekend. The car went well right from the morning, but there is still room for improvement. However, as usual on a Friday, it is hard to say what the real pecking order is in the field. The performance of the two types of tyre we have here is pretty similar, even if I never managed to get a clean run with the softer on and so it's hard for me to say which is quicker."

Scott Speed: “I am not sure exactly where we stand, as you don't know what the others are doing in terms of fuel load. Certainly we were on the low side when I did my quickest lap. The gearbox is definitely a step forward and the car was not bad today. We struggled a bit from understeer. This afternoon, I had a few problems, including one with the steering wheel, that prevented us from getting through all our programme, apart from looking at the tyre comparison and even that was not so conclusive as I had a problem on the warm-up lap for my last run. Generally, we look more competitive than we have in past races. Now we just need to work hard, keep our heads down and try not to make any mistakes for the rest of the weekend.”

Lewis Hamilton: “This morning was a little frustrating as I missed some track time when the engine protection system came in as a result of the engine running too cool and I stopped on track. Luckily the car was returned with about 45 minutes of the session still to run so I still managed to get quite a few laps in and completed our planned programme in the afternoon session.”

Vitantonio Liuzzi: “Maybe the quick times look nicer than they are in reality. We still have to work on improving the balance of the car, as the handling is not perfect yet. Even so, it is nice to see our names near the top of the order, at least on paper. Now we need to work on improving our traction and front end grip. For sure we are more competitive as the car has made a big step forward, mainly with the new seamless shift gearbox, which makes for much quicker changes. However, the other teams have probably also improved in other areas. Tomorrow, we will work on generally improving the set up, but we can look to the rest of the weekend in a positive frame of mind.”

David Coulthard: “A normal Friday session today, evaluating tyres, chasing balance and getting the car set ahead of tomorrow. The times were promising, but I don’t really get too excited about them on a Friday, as qualifying is the important thing.”

Nico Rosberg: “I didn't feel very good about my first runs out on the track but we managed to improve the set-up quite a lot today. We discovered some interesting things and tyre-wise we found some good results as well. As is usual this season, it's not immediately obvious how we'll work the two tyres, but we will go through that this evening. It's a lot of fun to drive on this track because of the new tarmac which gives it a lot more grip. My general feeling today is positive even if there are still some things we need to improve for tomorrow.”

Fernando Alonso: “We managed to complete our programme, and we have a good understanding of the Bridgestone Potenza tyres characteristics in these cooler than expected temperatures. We could have been faster today, and there is still a little bit of work to do tomorrow on the set-up. However I think we will be stronger over the weekend than we appear today and so I am not too worried about the results so far.”

Anthony Davidson: “I am happy with our day's work. We found a good balance for the new tyres close to the end of the day and I'm obviously pleased to be so high up on the timesheets. We found some quite big differences between the tyre options and I think that every team will find them a challenge for the rest of the weekend.”

Ralf Schumacher: “That was a reasonable day’s work. The car was reliable in both sessions so we did quite a lot of work on different set-ups, as well as getting information on the different tyre compounds. There seems to be quite a bit of difference between the medium and the soft tyres so we will have to look at the data and see what we do in terms of strategy. Track temperature was lower than usual here because of the cooler weather but that didn’t cause any problems and it is the same for everyone anyway. The car definitely improved during the two sessions so I am optimistic for the weekend but the battle in the midfield is very tight so it is difficult to say exactly where we are this weekend. Our target for tomorrow is clearly to get into Q3, I was very close to that in Indianapolis and I hope to achieve it this time.”

Giancarlo Fisichella: “I had a pretty good day. We did lots of laps and completed the programme, which is always the first objective. The changes we made to the set-up were good, and I felt really comfortable out on track. The times and handling balance were quite consistent on the long runs, which is an important factor for the race, and I don't think the position will look too bad once we have completed our analysis. There's still more progress to come from our work overnight, but I think we have a good starting point to work from.”

Robert Kubica: “After starting the day with some steering problems, which meant missing the first hour of running, everything went smoothly this afternoon. We have nearly completed our programme with quite a lot of set-up work. I am happy to be back in the car, we have to work for tomorrow, but generally the car’s balance is not too bad.”

Alexander Wurz: “We had a very interesting Friday session and ran through the programme according to plan, the only shame is that there were some yellow flags out when I was on my quickest lap. Now we have to go through the information to improve our set-up and make the correct tyre choice. The circuit was okay today, but just a little slippery. That's like every other venue on a Friday though and it provided a good foundation for consistent work.”

Jarno Trulli: “We went through some set-up work and also looked at tyre performance so it was a productive day and now we understand more about the direction we should take with the car. We suffered from a bit of understeer in some places during the day but in general the car seems quite good. Now we will have to work hard with the information we have and try to make more improvements before qualifying. We will have to wait and see where we stand in terms of performance because it is hard to judge on a Friday. We had a great race in the US with my sixth place but every race is a different challenge and it depends a lot on many variables, things like the weather, how the car is suited to the circuit and so on. For tomorrow I aim to qualify in the top 10 again so I can fight for more points in the race.”

Jenson Button: "It was a typical Friday practice for us today as we focused on evaluating the tyres and finding the best set-up on the car. Most of the runs went fairly smoothly with Rubens and myself covering a lot of laps, giving us plenty of data to work with overnight. It was pretty windy out there today which will make the data comparisons more tricky, but the conditions are the same for everyone."

Mark Webber: “I’d just started a long run in the second session and the car suffered a transmission problem, so I had to stop. The second session on a Friday is important, so it’s a shame that we couldn’t run for all of the time, but we’ll get information on the problem tonight and look into it ready for tomorrow.”

Heikki Kovalainen: “The car balance isn't quite where I want it to be at the moment, and that was costing me time today - especially as I also had some traffic on my last timed laps on new tyres. But that is something we can tune overnight, to be honest. The important thing was to do the programme, make some good set-up changes, and give ourselves a platform for tomorrow. I think we managed that successfully, and we know the direction we need to go overnight. There is still work to be done, and some time to be found in the car, but I think we will look better tomorrow, than the timesheets suggest right now.”

Rubens Barrichello: "I thought the car was a little more competitive today, although that isn't necessarily represented by our position on the time sheets. We struggled a little with the balance of the car during the morning session, particularly with the rear end, but it improved over the course of the day. Unfortunately I didn't get my last run on the new tyres this afternoon due to the yellow flags after a car went off the track. That would have improved my lap time a little for sure. Still, we have a lot of information to look over this evening to try to improve for qualifying tomorrow."

Nick Heidfeld: “The practice sessions have been okay so far and, anyway, I like driving on this circuit. I stopped early because I wanted to save my back. Last week at the Silverstone test I had some problems. I can still feel it and as a precaution I want to have it checked today.”

Takuma Sato: “The day was quite interesting because the two tyre options behaved differently, so we need to analyze the large amount of data we were able to collect today. We also ran some new aero developments and there were a few good points from them. The car ran reliably and with no problems, so I think that it was a positive day.”

Adrian Sutil: “I am not happy with today, I cannot find a balance I am happy with on the car. With one set-up I have a lot of understeer and with another I have oversteer; it is difficult to find a middle ground. We have a lot of work to do and we have to check all the data and see what we can do for tomorrow.”

Christijan Albers: “In the first session I was actually pretty happy with the car and I think we were making some good progress, but in the second session I touched the kerb on the exit of turn 12 and went straight ahead. Unfortunately this damaged the car and I couldn't continue. I am disappointed as we still had two new sets of tyres to use and we could have improved the time. We did make some steps though and we will have to see what will happen tomorrow.”

Hello f1 crazee people

Heyyy here you are in my f1 blog, me myself a great mclaren faaan, and if you are a ferrari fan beware, you are going to be crushed. Don't worry though my brother here is a ferrai fan and hopefully he'll write too. Think it'll be great fun writing for you guys.