Lewis: McLaren now must deliver in quali
Date published : 16 Apr 2010 - 11:14:39
Lewis Hamilton believes McLaren enjoyed a positive opening day in China and says it now must secure a top-five position in qualifying if it wants to challenge for the race victory.
The Woking squad topped both Friday practice sessions for the second successive grand prix weekend, Jenson Button setting the pace in the first before Hamilton moved to the front in the second by over 0.2s from Mercedes's Nico Rosberg.
After describing the MP4-25 as the best Formula 1 car he had ever driven at the last round in Malaysia, Hamilton says it continues to feel good to drive in Shanghai, particularly on the longer heavier-fuel runs.
The day's been good, he told reporters.
It's been much warmer today, which was a positive. Yesterday was freezing. But the car feels really nice to drive, as it did in Malaysia.
We made some subtle changes and kept on improving. The long runs feel pretty good, so that's a positive.
So I come out of P1 and P2 with a positive feeling, but you never know what's going to happen tomorrow we just have to keep our heads down and focus on trying to get a much better qualifying position tomorrow.
The former world champion had also set the Friday pace in both Australia and Malaysia, but qualifying problems had left him starting outside the top 10 at both races.
With the MP4-25's race pace appearing close to that of Red Bull, Hamilton acknowledges a strong qualifying position here will be crucial if he is to have a chance of challenging for his first win of the season.
You have seen our pace in the last two races it's been pretty good, the 25-year-old said.
But we've had to come from the back; we've come from 11th up to the front and from 20th up to the front.
Ideally we would like to get into Q3 and have definitely a top-five start tomorrow which will enable us to have a competitive run for the win.
Hamilton also played down the benefits McLaren is deriding from its F-duct' system, insisting the MP4-25 is not significantly quicker down the straights than some of its key rivals.
Everyone's talking about we have a straight-line speed advantage, but it's rubbish we don't have, the Briton added.
The Ferraris I think are doing the same speed as us at the end of the straight, we are a little bit quicker than some others, but some others are available to put more downforce on than us.
So it's a mix. They could drop the downforce and match us, but maybe they wouldn't be so fast in the mid-sector.
So really it's about having a balance and I think we have a very good balance. Hopefully it will help us tomorrow.
World champion team-mate Button slipped to third in the afternoon session after topping the morning times but says traffic on his low-fuel run on soft tyres meant he was unable to show the car's full potential.
Nevertheless the Briton believes the team is already close to an optimum set-up on his MP4-25.
Today's been a good day actually, Button said.
This afternoon has been a bit frustrating on my new tyre run on the softer tyre I had traffic. It seems that every session you are getting traffic on your good laps.
But apart from that the actual work we have done is positive, I'm happy with the direction we've taken.
There are a few more things we need to do, but we are almost getting the maximum out of the car especially on the long runs.
So it's moving in the right direction, but there's a few things we need to discuss and decide on where we are going to go with it.
Button still believes Red Bull remains the team to beat in Shanghai, however.
They are still looking very quick, he added.
They haven't showed their hand as they don't on Friday but they are quick and you can tell from their long runs they're competitive.
At the moment, you wouldn't say that we are quite on their pace but we have still got tonight to work on the car and we will see what we can do tomorrow.
