F1 Testing: Hockenheim

Lewis Hamilton made good use of the new anvil wing engine cover on
his McLaren MP4-23 to lead the way on the opening day of testing at
Hockenheim in Germany on Tuesday.

The Briton tried the new
engine cover design out for four laps prior to an early lunch caused by
a rain shower, before setting his fastest time of one minute 15.483
seconds in the afternoon.

Hamilton’s performance will almost
certainly have been helped by further aerodynamic and suspension
modifications that his team are introducing as they knuckle down for
the championship fight with Ferrari.

Kimi Raikkonen ended the
day second fastest overall, but was more than three tenths of a second
adrift of Hamilton. Nico Rosberg was third quickest for Williams, while
Adrian Sutil was an encouraging fourth quickest for Force India.

The
day was marred by a number of rain showers that hampered the teams’
progress over the day, although they were still able to complete a
great deal of dry running.

The only red flag of the day was
caused when Alexander Wurz spun off at the Mercedes Tribune corner
while running on wet tyres. He had spent the day evaluating a new front
wing.

Toyota were the other team trying out major updates, with
new front and rear wings on their TF108 helping Kamui Kobayashi set the
sixth quickest time.

Kimi Raikkonen took to the track for Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro. The
reigning world champion and, along with two others, the leader of the
2008 series, had a programme centred on set-up work in preparation for
the German Grand Prix, which takes place at this track on 20th July. He
also evaluated new aerodynamic and mechanical components. The day’s
work was held up by rain which fell intermittently up to four in the
afternoon. Kimi completed a total of 63 laps, the quickest in a time of
1.15.803.

The Scuderia continues testing at this circuit tomorrow, with Raikkonen again on track.

Pos  Driver       Team                     Time      Laps
 1.  Hamilton     McLaren-Mercedes    (B)  1:15.483  75
 2.  Raikkonen    Ferrari             (B)  1:15.803  63
 3.  Rosberg      Williams-Toyota     (B)  1:16.099  87
 4.  Sutil        Force India-Ferrari (B)  1:16.516  97
 5.  Bourdais     Toro Rosso-Ferrari  (B)  1:16.533  113
 6.  Kobayashi    Toyota              (B)  1:16.570  65
 7.  Heidfeld     BMW Sauber          (B)  1:16.593  59
 8.  Piquet       Renault             (B)  1:16.856  111
 9.  Coulthard    Red Bull-Renault    (B)  1:17.361  67
10.  Wurz         Honda               (B)  1:17.825  89




McLaren Test Anvil Wing
From Autosport.com
McLaren’s bid to keep up the aggressive development of their MP4-23

continued on Tuesday when they ran an anvil wing engine cover for the

first time at the Hockenheim test.
Just 48 hours after Lewis Hamilton got his world championship

ambitions back on track with a stunning victory in the British Grand

Prix, the British driver evaluated the new engine cover.
The use of the engine cover follows the trend begun by Red Bull Racing and since copied by Renault and Force India.
Although

rain showers have marred the opening day of the test at Hockenheim,

McLaren should be able to get enough dry running to evaluate whether or

not to run the cover at the German Grand Prix.
McLaren F1 CEO Martin Whitmarsh believed the team’s work on the car

over recent weeks was now paying dividends in their fight against

Ferrari.
"I think the reality is the team have done a fantastic job to

continue to develop the car over the past two races and it’s starting

to pay off," Whitmarsh told autosport.com. 
"The championship fight is rather like last year. In reality it will

swing backwards and forwards according to how good a job we are doing.

We will continue to improve but Ferrari are a strong team and they’re

going to be continuing to improve. We’ve just got to do it at a faster

rate."
 Well, let’s see if Ferrari are concentrating 110% on developing the car, as McLaren certainly had upped their game in their preparations for Silverstone. I can’t help but feel for Kimi especially, who’s only really had yesterday off but even that with all the media rubbish in the air. Now he’s back at work, but I’m sure he’s focused on his job and only that. He wants to win, and doesn’t care what people think about him. Winning is all that matters. Keep flying Kimi! Meanwhile…



Di Montezemolo: We must make no more mistakes
From Autosport.com
Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo has urged his team and drivers

to stop making "stupid" mistakes if they are to stay in contention for

the world championship this season.
The team chose to leave Kimi Raikkonen on the same set of

intermediate tyres at his first pit stop and then left him out on the

old tyres so long that he fell out of contention for victory at

Silverstone yesterday.
Raikkonen and Felipe Massa also had several spins each in the race,

although Raikkonen did recover to finish fourth, but di Montezemolo

says they all need to learn from their mistakes.
"I hope we’ll manage to win our eighth title in ten years," he was quoted as saying by Gazzetta dello Sport. "We will (manage it) if we don’t carry on doing stupid things.
"Obviously I wasn’t pleased with what I saw yesterday, but I hope it’s a useful lesson. Knowing my men, I’m certain it is."
He also says Ferrari have missed out on too many good results so far

this season and can’t afford to throw away any more in the remaining

races.
"We’re at the half way point of the season and in the lead of the

championship," he added. "But we’ve lost too many opportunities, so in

the second half of the season we must not lose any more."