Despite Ferrari-and Felipe Massain particular – leaving their competitors quite literally trailing in their wheeltracks during the morning session on practice day in Malaysia, Lewis Hamilton fought back in the afternoon to put McLaren-Mercedes back on top – and then stated that his day had not been perfect.
Indeed, it was the 23-year-old's Finnish team-mate Heikki Kovalainen who led the Silver Arrows' charge early on, lapping third-quickest – albeit a gaping 1.2 seconds adrift of Massa – in the morning session as Hamilton grappled with minor gearshift issues on his MP4-23 and lay fifth. The tables were turned later on in the day, however, as the Briton took a full 1.5 seconds off his previous best effort to blow the Ferrari challenge out of the water.
“I am pretty happy with today's results,” the Melbourne winner affirmed, “as the car showed consistent pace throughout the session and good overall speed. Unfortunately the morning session was not perfect as I had a slight problem on the car right at the end, but this didn't really have any effect on our planned programme of tyre evaluation and race set-up work.”
“That was a good, steady start to the weekend,” added Kovalainen, who slipped down to seventh position at the close of play after barely improving upon his previous time. “The car feels pretty comfortable to drive round here, and we made good progress on the set-up for the race.
“The track surface had only recently been re-laid, and as a result it was constantly evolving throughout the two sessions. The conditions here are always very extreme with the heat and humidity, but this had no effect on the car's performance, and I am pretty happy so far with how everything has gone.”
It was a strong opening day for the world championship leaders, whose superiority in terms of outright pace was made all-the-more significant by Ferrari – and in particular Hamilton's chief championship rival Kimi Raikkonen– once again running into reliability woes.
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Indeed, it was the 23-year-old's Finnish team-mate Heikki Kovalainen who led the Silver Arrows' charge early on, lapping third-quickest – albeit a gaping 1.2 seconds adrift of Massa – in the morning session as Hamilton grappled with minor gearshift issues on his MP4-23 and lay fifth. The tables were turned later on in the day, however, as the Briton took a full 1.5 seconds off his previous best effort to blow the Ferrari challenge out of the water.
“I am pretty happy with today's results,” the Melbourne winner affirmed, “as the car showed consistent pace throughout the session and good overall speed. Unfortunately the morning session was not perfect as I had a slight problem on the car right at the end, but this didn't really have any effect on our planned programme of tyre evaluation and race set-up work.”
“That was a good, steady start to the weekend,” added Kovalainen, who slipped down to seventh position at the close of play after barely improving upon his previous time. “The car feels pretty comfortable to drive round here, and we made good progress on the set-up for the race.
“The track surface had only recently been re-laid, and as a result it was constantly evolving throughout the two sessions. The conditions here are always very extreme with the heat and humidity, but this had no effect on the car's performance, and I am pretty happy so far with how everything has gone.”
It was a strong opening day for the world championship leaders, whose superiority in terms of outright pace was made all-the-more significant by Ferrari – and in particular Hamilton's chief championship rival Kimi Raikkonen– once again running into reliability woes.
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