Malaysian GP Free Practice Photos

Interview with Lewis Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton has been at the centre of a controversy since the Australian Grand Prix, where the McLaren driver and sporting director Dave Ryan faced the FIA stewards to explain an incident with Jarno Trulli during the race.

Over the week, the FIA revealed both men had misled the stewards, leading to Hamilton's disqualification from the event and to heavy criticism in the British media over his antics.

On Friday at Sepang, Hamilton faced the media to offer an apology and to give his view on the whole incident.

Lewis Hamilton: In Melbourne, I had a great race. As soon as I got out the car I had the television interviews at the back of the garage, and straight away I gave them a good account of what happened during the race. Straight after that we were requested by the stewards, and while waiting for the stewards I was instructed and misled by my team manager to withhold information, and that is what I did.

I sincerely apologise to the stewards for wasting their time and for making them look silly. I am very, very sorry for the situation: for my team, for Dave because he has been a good member of the team for many years, and whilst I don't think it was his intention or...he is a good guy.

I went into the meeting, I had no intention of...I just wanted to tell the story and say what happened. I was misled and that is the way it went. I would like to say a big sorry to all my fans who have believed in me, who have supported me for years, who I showed who I am for the past three years, and it is who I am. I am not a liar. I am not a dishonest person. I am a team player.

Every time I have been informed to do something I have done it. This time I realise it was a huge mistake and I am learning from it. It has taken a huge toll on me. I apologise to you guys, I didn't speak to you yesterday, but there was a lot of take in and a lot to deal with. I am here to apologise to everyone and I assure you it won't happen again.

Q. How do you feel about yourself? Do you feel comfortable with yourself about what you have done?

LH: No. This is why I am here. This is why I am sitting here in front of you. This is not an easy thing for anyone to do. To put their hand up, and step back and realise they are in the wrong. But the fact is I was in the wrong. I feel I owe it to my fans and I owe it to my people to let them know. But like I said, I was misled. It is easy to be misled sometimes, and I realise that that is the situation and that is why I am here.

Q. You say you were misled. Can I ask, did you talk to Dave Ryan before you went into the stewards and say, that doesn't stack up with what I have just said or what I believe? And how difficult was it for you to go in knowing that what you were saying was misleading?

LH: The thing is we were rushed. I was still in my suit, and we went straight up. Actually when I came up from the garage, we went straight up the pitlane and we went straight there, and while we were waiting for Jarno to come out, I was instructed.

I honestly acted as a team member. If the team have asked me to do something I have generally done it. I didn't have time to think about it, to think about what I was going to do. I went in and I did it, and I felt awkward. I felt very uncomfortable. I think the stewards could see that, and I guess that is why I am in this position.

To refer to the guy before's question - I've never felt so bad. Try and put yourself in my position and understand that, like I said, I am not a liar. I have not gone through my life being a liar or dishonest. And so for people to say I am dishonest and for the world to think that....what can I say?

Q. You have said it was a matter between you and Dave Ryan. Was anyone else at McLaren involved in the planning for the decision, or was it only you two?

LH: No. It was just me and Dave.

Q. There was nothing wrong with what you did on the circuit. There was nothing wrong with the radio conversation itself. Did you not ask yourself why the hell they [the team] wanted to present this version, and what was the target out of it?

LH: Like I said, I was literally walking in so I didn't have time to really think about it. But for sure afterwards I wasn't completely sure why. We hadn't done anything wrong, we were just going in there to give account of what happened - regardless of if I had third or fourth. Jarno did a fantastic race and I had no need and no intention of giving him the penalty. That was not my aim. That is not something I do. I earn my points and my positions through hard work, and that is not the way I think.

Q. Have you apologised to Jarno, and was it you who pressured the team to sack Ryan [who has been suspended]?

LH: That second part of the question is nothing to do with me. Dave is a great guy and he has worked with the team for many years. He is feeling it just as much as the whole team. I haven't had the chance to speak to Jarno. I did actually see him before we went into the meeting and I said sorry for the situation. But…

Q. When Jarno went off and you passed him correctly, because he was off the track, why was there was any decision at all about letting him back in front? Why didn't you just stay there? Why was there any radio communication?

LH: When the safety car comes out, the team tell you time and time again, no overtaking under yellow flags. So while that has been drummed into you, you are dealing with everything that has been going on.

Jarno went off the track and clearly I went by. I tried to avoid going by, but I went by. Whilst I was sure in my mind that this is not my fault I have gone by him, I had to be sure. I worked this hard to get from dead last on the grid to fourth place, I was sitting in third now and I didn't want to be penalised. I didn't want the hard work to go out the window by getting a penalty, so I had to make sure. It is better to be safe and sound so I asked time and time again.

Q. Is this the worst thing you've ever had to do. And do you fear FIA retribution for the team, which a lot of people have speculated on? The FIA has said it is possible there could be repercussions

LH: For me, the situation is definitely the worst thing I've experienced in my life. That is why I am here. It is right for me as a human being and as a man to stand in front of you all and tell you exactly what went on and put up my hands. I cannot tell you how sorry I am. I'm sorry to my team and my family for the embarrassment. It is a very, very embarrassing situation.

I am sure the FIA will act accordingly and in the right way. I don't know what else is going to happen in the future. For me now, I have to focus on the race and try to move forward from this, learn from it and grow.

Barrichello get's five lace grid down penalty

Rubens Barrichello will be given a five-place grid penalty at the Malaysian Grand Prix after needing a gearbox change following Friday's practice.

The Brazilian, who finished second in the Australian Grand Prix last weekend, did not have any apparent problems during practice, but his Brawn GP team has decided a gearbox change was necessary ahead of tomorrow's sessions.

As a result of the change, Barrichello will get a grid penalty because gearboxes must last for four grand prix weekends.

Lewis Hamilton - "I've never felt so bad"

Lewis Hamilton has apologised to the FIA stewards and to his fans for what he has called a 'huge mistake' in how he handled post-race events at the Australian Grand Prix.

The Briton was disqualified from the Melbourne race after the stewards deemed he and his McLaren team had 'deliberately misled' them about a radio conversation that took place after he had got past Toyota driver Jarno Trulli behind the safety car.

Hamilton says he was advised by McLaren sporting director Dave Ryan not to mention that he had been ordered to let Trulli overtake him. That decision has resulted in Ryan being suspended from the team.

Clearly emotional about his involvement in the events, Hamilton called a press conference in the media centre at Sepang on Friday to apologise for all that happened.

"In Melbourne, I had a great race. As soon as I got out the car I had the television interviews at the back of the garage, and straight away I gave them a good account of what happened during the race," said Hamilton.

"Straight after that we were requested by the stewards, and while waiting for the stewards I was instructed and misled by my team manager to withhold information, and that is what I did.

"I sincerely apologise to the stewards for wasting their time and for making them look silly. I am very, very sorry for the situation: for my team, for Dave because he has been a good member of the team for many years, and whilst I don't think it was his intention or...he is a good guy.

"I went into the meeting, I had no intention of...I just wanted to tell the story and say what happened. I was misled and that is the way it went. I would like to say a big sorry to all my fans who have believed in me, who have supported me for years, who I showed who I am for the past three years, and it is who I am. I am not a liar. I am not a dishonest person. I am a team player.

"Every time I have been informed to do something I have done it. This time I realise it was a huge mistake and I am learning from it. It has taken a huge toll on me. I apologise to you guys, I didn't speak to you yesterday, but there was a lot to take in and a lot to deal with. I am here to apologise to everyone and I assure you it won't happen again."

Hamilton, who received applause by a number of journalists at the end of the short press conference, said that only he and Ryan had been involved in the decision to withhold information from the FIA.

The world champion reckoned the situation he found himself in now was the worst he had faced in his career.

"I've never felt so bad," he said. "Try and put yourself in my position and understand that, like I said, I am not a liar. I have not gone through my life being a liar or dishonest. And so for people to say I am dishonest and for the world to think that....what can I say?

He added: "For me, the situation is definitely the worst thing I've experienced in my life. That is why I am here. It is right for me as a human being and as a man to stand in front of you all and tell you exactly what went on and put up my hands. I cannot tell you how sorry I am. I'm sorry to my team and my family for the embarrassment. It is a very, very embarrassing situation."

When asked if he was concerned about the possibility of further action being taken against him and McLaren by the FIA, he said: "I am sure the FIA will act accordingly and in the right way. I don't know what else is going to happen in the future. For me now, I have to focus on the race and try to move forward from this, learn from it and grow."

Trulli - Toyota will be very competitive

Jarno Trulli is convinced that he and the Toyota team will be competitive in this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix despite both cars ending free practice outside the top ten.

The Italian, who finished third in the season-opening Australian GP, reckons there is good reason to believe that he can replicate that performance on Sunday.

"If you look at the timing sheets we don't look as competitive as I expected before coming here but I think the car is definitely there and it is just a matter of getting the right direction on set-up," he said.

"The soft tyres seem to be pretty competitive and they were faster but the hard ones were a little bit too hard."

Trulli's team-mate Timo Glock ran off-track a couple of times during practice, but shared the Italian's confidence in Toyota's race potential.

"It has been quite a tricky day for me today," he said. "The car this morning didn't feel quite right and I had some trouble with the stability, then at the beginning of second practice I was getting some oversteer and the car felt light.

"But we worked on some different set-ups and by the end of the day it was feeling better.

"We still have plenty of work to do before qualifying but we had a similar situation in Melbourne and we made a lot of progress so I am still optimistic."

McLaren feels ashamed by Melbourne saga

McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh says he has 'deep, deep regret' for the situation his team has found itself in after Lewis Hamilton was disqualified from the Australian Grand Prix.

On the day that he was was forced to suspend McLaren stalwart Dave Ryan, its sporting director, for providing 'deliberately misleading' comments to race stewards in Melbourne, Whitmarsh said his team was embarrassed by all that had happened.

He revealed that it had only become clear last night and this morning that Ryan had not been totally truthful with the race stewards as they discussed Jarno Trulli overtaking Lewis Hamilton in the final safety car period of the Australia race.

Ryan and Hamilton misled the stewards because they claimed that there had been no radio conversation to discuss letting Trulli retake third place - something that was disproved after the race.

Speaking during a tense FIA press conference at Sepang on Friday, Whitmarsh said he had no choice but to suspend Ryan for his behaviour in the stewards' meeting.

"It has become clear from discussions with Dave last night and through into this morning that during the stewards meeting after the Australian Grand Prix, he was not entirely full and truthful in the answers he gave the stewards," said Whitmarsh.

"Consequently we had no alternative today other than to suspend him. As you can imagine, it is a very sad day for the team. We have got to deal with this weekend. We have to look in a bit more detail all of the events that surrounded it.

"From my perspective obviously it is a point of deep, deep regret - it is not how I wanted this year in particular to start. It is something for which the team and myself are not only deeply embarrassed but deeply regretful, and for Davey it has been a shattering day for him."

Whitmarsh explained that Ryan and Hamilton's decision not to tell the stewards about the radio conversation between team and driver was taken unilaterally, without consultation with senior management.

"I think anyone who knows Davey will know that he did not set out with any deliberate intention to mislead the stewards," said Whitmarsh.

"He went to that meeting with Lewis I am sure with the intention of being very clear and straightforward, but I think during the course of that meeting, as we have explored it more with him over the past 24 hours, it has become clear that he was not as full and comprehensive as he could have been."

When asked if he felt Hamilton had also been truthful in the meeting, Whitmarsh said: "No. I think that Lewis was not entirely truthful, but we have spoken to Davey. He was the senior member of the team and they went into the situation together.

"I think they were trying to deal with the situation and they got it wrong – but Davey as the senior member of the team was responsible for what happened and therefore I took the decision this morning."

Whitmarsh said a decision about Ryan's future would be made when the team returned from the Malaysian GP.

"Davey has been sent home, and during the course of this weekend we need to understand exactly what happened and make the decision about Davey's future."

Whitmarsh also suggested further action could be taken, and did not rule out resigning himself over the matter.

When asked if he had considered stepping down, Whitmarsh said: "I think there are a lot of things going through my mind today as you can imagine, and it has happened during an event where we are trying to do the best job we can.

"I think as a team at the moment we have lost someone who is a significant anchor in this organisation and we have to make sure we pull together to do the best job we can this weekend. I think we have to reflect on anything that happened over the course of the Australian GP weekend after this race has finished."

He added: "I don't rule anything in or out. At the moment what we are keen and earnest to do today is make sure we put our hands up – and say there was a serious error of judgement during that process and we sure we come clean on that."

Hamilton has called a special press conference for Sepang this afternoon to explain his role in the events that took place in Australia last week.

Alonso still suffering from ear infection

Double world champion Fernando Alonso believes he will be only 90 per cent fit for tomorrow's Malaysian Grand Prix qualifying session after being hit by an ear infection.

Although the Renault driver is confident that he will be at full strength by the time the race starts on Sunday, he was forced to restrict himself to just 32 laps in Friday practice - fewer than any other driver.

"Tomorrow in qualifying I will be 90 per cent and Sunday hopefully 100 per cent," he said of his health. "The team doctor and physios are looking after my health, so I'm in good hands.

"I have an infection in my ear, a temperature and am not feeling very well from two days ago. Today we tried to do the minimum number of laps to not lose too much water. The race is on Sunday, so we tried to do some set-up work but it's very light."

Alonso added that despite the team struggling in practice, he expects a better performance from the Renault R29 in qualifying and the race.

"There is more to come from our car," he said. "We need to find a better set-up. We tested some interesting things today, so tomorrow we need to put everything together."

Ferrari - Malaysian GP - Free Practice

Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa topped the timesheets following the first day of practice of the Malaysian Grand Prix weekend. It was not all smooth sailing for the Italian team however as Kimi Raikkonen was forced to pit with a KERS problem at the end of the morning session with steam or smoke filling the cockpit of the F60.

The Finn had a more trouble-free run in the afternoon to record a best lap of 1:35.707s, a tenth head of team-mate Massa.

Kimi Raikkonen
“This morning we had a problem with the KERS, which cost us a bit of time, but we managed to make up for most of it in the afternoon. We had felt that the situation here could be different to Melbourne, but it is still too early to say where we are up against the opposition. What we can be sure of is that when the car runs trouble-free, we are competitive. We hope we can do a good job in tomorrow’s qualifying.”

Felipe Massa
“The situation seems different compared to Australia, at least in terms of how the tyres operate. There is more grip and the softer tyres work well, even over a long distance. At the start of the long runs, I had a bit of understeer in the high speed corners and oversteer in the slow ones, but towards the end, the handling of the car improved continuously and I could set some great times. Clearly, looking at the time sheet today, there’s a slight feeling of relief, even if it has to be treated with caution: we are very motivated and the whole team will be trying its best.”

Stefano Domenicali, Team Principal
“These three hours of free practice would seem to offer a different view of the situation to the one we saw in Australia, which indeed was predictable given the characteristics of the two circuits.
Obviously, it’s much too early to say what is our level of performance when compared to all the other teams, but it is clear that it very finely balanced, given that the first fifteen in the second session are all covered by less than a second."

"Reliability remains the main priority: again today we had a technical problem which, if it had happened in the race, would have led to a retirement. Having said that, we must remain focused and calm, while allowing ourselves to look forward to the rest of the weekend being aware that we will have to fight hard to bring home a good result.”

Luca Baldisserri
“This morning we experienced a short circuit in the kinetic energy recovery system fitted to Kimi’s car, which cost us a bit of time, but it didn’t compromise our completion of today’s programme. The main aim was to understand how the two types of Bridgestone tyre we have here perform, both over a single first lap and over a distance. From what we have seen today, the situation seems very different to what we experienced in Melbourne, especially when it comes to the consistency of performance from the softer compound. From this point of view, it’s been a good day, but we have to work very carefully on every detail when it comes to the reliability of the car.”

Brawn GP - Malaysian GP - Free Practice

Just five days after the season-opening Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne, Brawn GP's Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello took to the track at the Sepang International Circuit in the first of the practice sessions ahead of this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix.

In hot and humid conditions, with air temperatures peaking at 33°C and 71% humidity, the duo completed 110 laps of the 5.54km circuit, ending the afternoon practice session with Barrichello in sixth position and Button in seventh place on the timesheets.

The pair worked through the team's Friday programme of set-up work and tyre evaluations with the soft and hard compound Bridgestone Potenza tyres which will be used this weekend.

Rubens Barrichello
"We achieved a good day's work today on a challenging track where it is always difficult to find the right balance with the car and tyres. Our evaluations with the prime and the option tyre were particularly useful and although we still have some work to do on the balance, overall it was a positive day."

Jenson Button
"We completed some useful running today to work on improving the balance of the car.
My biggest problem was that we are locking the tyres and brakes very easily so we need to have a good look at this. We're not quite there yet but we are going in the right direction and I'm confident we will achieve the optimum set-up ready for qualifying tomorrow."

Ross Brawn, Team Principal
"The practice sessions in Malaysia today have been our first experience of higher track and air temperatures so we made the most of the available running to learn how the car, tyres and engine work in these conditions. We struggled a little with the balance of the car and at the moment it is not performing quite as well as in Australia last weekend. However I am confident that we are on the right path and with some hard work overnight, we should be in a good position for the rest of the weekend."

McLaren Mercedes - Malaysian GP - Free Practice

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.”