McLaren Mercedes has enough issues to deal with away from the circuit without problems during the Grand Prix weekend. Today however in qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix the team put in its best performance of the season with Lewis Hamilton lining up fifth in his ever-improving MP4-24 package.“We have been pushing incredibly hard over the last couple of months and this is a result of all our hard work," said Hamilton as he split the once all-conquering Brawn Mercedes duo. "I’m very proud of what we’ve achieved: firstly, it was good to get into the top ten, then it was even better to battle inside the top ten! We’ve got a similar pace to some of the guys in the top five; as long as everything goes smoothly we should be able to get a top five finish tomorrow. I can almost see pole position now – and I’m really looking forward to getting there soon!”
Hamilton's view was backed up team-mate Heikki Kovalainen as he targets a points paying position from 11th on the grid and Team Principal Martin Whitmarsh.
“After our top-ten qualifying position in Shanghai last weekend, today’s performance once again shows that we are continuing to make progress with MP4-24," he said. "Lewis’s top-five position is a fantastic achievement and, considering he began the first race of the season from 18th on the grid, a fantastic indicator of just how much progress the team has made."
"Of course, while our qualifying positions mark the team’s best Saturday performance of the season, they were made without compromise to our race pace; both Lewis and Heikki are well placed to pick up some more points for the team tomorrow.”
Mercedes-Benz Motorsport Vice President went on to explain that the stop-start nature of this 5.412km circuit play into the hands of the team as they can take advantage of their strong and so far trouble free Kinetic Energy Recovery System.
No comments:
Post a Comment