World champion insists "it's been an okay day" despite being 0.5s slower than Nico Rosberg at Silverstone
Wednesday 8 July 2015 11:45, UK
Lewis Hamilton insisted he was happy enough with the start to his British GP weekend, despite being slower than Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg during both of Friday's practice sessions.
Rosberg has won three out of the last four races to close to within 10 points of Hamilton in the title race and he continued in much the same fashion on the opening day at Silverstone.
Fastest in P1 – even though he sat out most of the session after Mercedes changed his car’s gearbox – the German upped the pace in the afternoon with a lap 0.347s faster than Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari.
Second fastest in the morning, Hamilton was fourth fastest in P2, almost half a second down on Rosberg. Yet speaking to Sky Sports News HQ, he sounded unconcerned.
"It's been an okay day," the world champion said. "It's been pretty smooth after the start of the session in P1 but otherwise it’s been great and the fans have been incredible so far. I’m looking forward to seeing more of them over the weekend.”
Hamilton said he expected a tight qualifying battle on Saturday. “I would assume so yes. The car wasn’t feeling bad today, so I think it’s going to be close. The Ferraris are quite close as well so it should be a good race.”
If Hamilton was slightly off the pace then it might have had something to do with his priorities: after taking pole two weeks ago in Austria, he arguably lost the race at the lights when he got too much wheelspin, allowing Rosberg past.
The Briton says he has struggled with his starts since Mercedes made changes to their car’s clutches ahead of the Spanish GP and spent time on Friday practising them.
“So far it feels really good,” he said. “I don’t want to jinx it or anything like that but it feels good. It feels the same as it was in the first four races, so we’ll see how it continues through the weekend."
Meanwhile, Rosberg thanked his team for their fast work in changing his car’s gearbox after it suffered a hydraulic leak.
Even so, Mercedes later received a reprimand from the stewards after their mechanics brought his car back to the pits with covers on – which is against FIA rules.
"It was just a bit of a nuisance to lose some running. But the team did a great job to turn the car around and get me out again,” Rosberg said.
"I mean, they completely dissected the car, took the rear end away, put a new one on and got me going again within 45 minutes, which was incredible."
