Very much in the spotlight this weekend in Malaysia, the McLaren Mercedes team got back to work in the Malaysian heat with Heikki Kovalainen and Lewis Hamilton ending the afternoon session with the ninth and 11th fastest times respectively.Kovalainen's morning run was limited to just seven laps after the Finn flat-spotted his tyres but the team also opted to coat the rear diffuser area with the now familiar flow-visualisation paint, so prominent in pre-season testing. The team focused most of their efforts on the MP4-23 aero programme.
Heikki Kovalainen
“The track grip was immediately good, and less dusty than in Australia. We’ve made some good progress with the car’s development. As we started pushing, the car started to move around quite a bit and was more difficult to drive. But our consistency over the long runs looks quite promising. I just need some aircon in the car – it’s totally boiling!”
Lewis Hamilton
“I had no particular issues with the car this morning. Clearly, we still need a bit more grip but our balance, particularly through the high-speed stuff, felt good. The car felt stronger than I expected.”
Martin Whitmarsh, Team Principal
“Once again, we fully utilised the track time during both Friday practice sessions to refine the bodywork developments we are making to MP4-24 and focus on set-up ahead of Sunday’s grand prix – a race we anticipate will be one of the hottest and most demanding of the year. MP4-24 continues to evolve, and today’s programme underlines the encouraging progress we feel we are making with the car.”
Norbert Haug, Mercedes VP
“We compared both tyre compounds and posted consistent lap times. After today, I would not say that we made a step forward but at least it looks as if we are headed in the right direction. The team improved quite a lot since the team test in Barcelona less than a month ago. But everybody inside Vodafone McLaren Mercedes is aware that we still have a lot of work ahead of us until we will be back at the top.”
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