Friday, August 27, 2010

Hamilton hoping for rain

Lewis Hamilton is confident his McLaren can perform in the wet

Lewis Hamilton reckons McLaren can be competitive if it rains at this weekend's Belgian Grand Prix but stopped short of making any predictions ahead of qualifying.

He finished Friday practice third fastest overall, just 0.216 seconds off pacesetter Fernando Alonso and ahead of both Red Bulls. The car is especially competitive in the high-speed first and third sectors but off the pace in sector two.

"We're definitely making small steps forward," Hamilton said. "This track does seem to suit our car better [than in Hungary], but let's not get ahead of ourselves. If it rains, then we seem to be competitive, but we have realistic expectations for this weekend - I didn't score in the last race, so it's important that we get more points on the board on Sunday."

He said that his programme had been restricted by the allocation of wet tyres during Friday's sessions.

"The weather made it a bit of an up-and-down day," Hamilton added. "It started off very wet, so we didn't do too much running in the morning. But we got a few more laps this afternoon on the Intermediates and then the option tyre.

"Because the rules don't allow us to use too many wet-weather tyres - we only have three Extremes and four Intermediates - we really need to look after them, so we were very cautious, just in case we need to use them later on in the weekend."

Source: ESPNF1

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