Formula 1 News

2009 Chinese GP, practice: McLaren quotes 

Norbert Haug: “Seeing Lewis in P1 after this morning’s session brought back some good memories – although we are aware that the team’s package is not yet competitive. Still, the improvements we have made to the car – which are particularly relentless at the moment – should see us making another encouraging step forward. Sunday’s race will be greatly influenced by the performance over a stint of the Bridgestone super-soft, but our consistency on both tyres looks quite okay at this early stage of the weekend.”

Lewis Hamilton: “The car instantly felt a bit better. I can feel more stability and downforce from the front. We’ve definitely made a step forward for this race. The car feels much stronger through the corners and I think we’ve got a very positive baseline for the rest of the weekend. My first run on the options felt quite consistent. The drop-off definitely feels manageable. This was a good day, although we still need to work on MP4-24’s medium- and high-speed balance.”

Martin Whitmarsh: “The team, both at the track and back in the factory, has done a fantastic job to get these bodywork upgrades to Shanghai – and initial analysis would suggest that they have contributed to a slight uplift in our overall competitiveness. We are still working on MP4-24’s overall balance, but nonetheless concluded some productive tyre evaluation work. Heikki’s day was compromised by a hydraulic system problem which failed to adjust his front wing flaps correctly, a fault that distracted both him and his engineers from their regular programme.”

Heikki Kovalainen: “I’m very impressed by the performance upgrades for this race. We still need to do more work to find the best balance, but our car definitely feels more stable here.”

source: McLaren Mercedes