P3 programme
Two runs for Lewis (4 laps/1m27.923s; 4 laps/1m27.812s) as his engineers worked to improve the set-up. The session was spent productively improving overall balance, ironing out stability issues before switching attention to a final run (2 laps/1m26.714s) on the option. He finished in 12th.
Qualifying
Opting for two single-lap runs on options, Lewis set a decent 1m26.454s to finish the Q1 session 15th fastest. However, the final run to improve his time resulted in the car suffering a sudden loss of drive, leaving Lewis to coast back to the pits. “Something broke on the rear of my car on my second flying lap in Q1,” Lewis explained. “I just lost all drive in the gearbox and couldn’t continue.” A five-place grid penalty for changing the gearbox means Lewis starts from 20th tomorrow. “We’ll have fun in the race,” he added. “My congratulations to Jenson and everyone at Brawn GP – they have done a fantastic job all weekend and have a lot to look forward to tomorrow.”
MARTIN WHITMARSH – team principal, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes
“A gearbox failure – a broken fourth gear – on Lewis’s car in Q1 prevented him from setting as quick a time as he might otherwise have been able to, but at least he got through to Q2 even if he was unable to take part in it. Both drivers did a good job, though, in circumstances that were difficult for us all. The reality is that we’ve made progress in the past couple of weeks, but clearly not enough. There’s more to come, though, and everyone at Woking, Brixworth and Stuttgart is working as hard as they can to turn things around in the shortest time possible.”
NORBERT HAUG – vice-president, Mercedes-Benz Motorsport
“It’s a shame that Lewis suffered a gearbox problem, which should not happen when he was on his best lap so far – there was not such a problem during more than 7000 km of testing. Our speed was obviously not great, however Kimi and Nick – who were also both running KERS – were respectively 0.35s and 0.25s ahead of us, and Fernando is not more than 0.15s away. But of course, we have to continue to improve dramatically. Congratulations to Brawn GP for a superb debut. We are especially happy that our Mercedes-Benz engine powers the whole front row.”
