Ferraris push the champ
Hamilton says there’s work to do to repeat Silverstone gold
LEWIS Hamilton recognised he had work to do after Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel lapped faster than the Formula One world champion in British Grand Prix practice yesterday.
“Ferrari look strong again here and they were right there with us today so it should be a good battle,” the Mercedes driver said after finishing fourth in the day’s second session led by teammate Nico Rosberg.
Raikkonen was second and fourtime champion Vettel, the only nonMercedes driver to win this year, ended third.
“Hopefully we’ll find a bit more tomorrow otherwise we could find ourselves in trouble,” added the Briton, who leads Rosberg in the championship by 10 points going into his home race.
Hamilton won at Silverstone last year, on the way to taking his second title, and can count on the support of most of the expected 140 000 crowd today.
If they were disappointed not to see him dominant from the outset, they need only remember how he came back from the disappointment of misjudging the weather and qualifying sixth last year.
The champion, who has been on pole in seven of eight races this season, said it had been a good day generally.
“Not perfect, and we’ve got some work to do overnight, but the pace is decent,” he said.
“I didn’t have the ideal balance on the long runs and I’ve got a bit of work to do on set-up. But otherwise it’s all been good.
“I’ve also gone back on clutch setup which feels really good so far, just like it did in the first few races.”
Rosberg, winner of three of the last four races, had a difficult start to the day when he stopped on the track with a hydraulic issue that meant he missed much of the first session despite still ending up fastest.
“In the afternoon it went a bit better but there were also some little problems here and there and the car felt not quite perfect,” said the German.
“It’s a very demanding track with lots of different types of corners and there’s still a lot of work to do to find the right set up.”
Meanwhile, Formula One have abandoned controversial plans to reintroduce refuelling from 2017 after teams decided it would not be a good move, Force India deputy principal Bob Fernley said yesterday.
“The view collectively was that it’s not going to improve the show and the decision was not to go forward with that,” he said at the British Grand Prix.
The proposal to bring back refuelling was raised at a meeting of the sport’s Strategy Group in May as part of the measures to make cars faster and Formula One more exciting for both drivers and fans.
However, the initial enthusiasm waned when some questioned why something that was banned in 2010 for reasons of cost and safety should be revived at a time when teams were trying to save money.
Concerns about refuelling narrowing the strategy options were also raised.
A Strategy Group meeting on Wednesday for mally shelved the idea, and there was no mention of refuelling – which would require heavy rigs and extra pit crew to operate them – in a statement issued on Thursday.
Instead, it mentioned a proposal to increase the race fuel allowance.
Fernley said the refuelling proposal had stemmed from a desire to increase engine horsepower, which would require more fuel and either bigger tanks or the chance to put more in during the race.
The Force India boss said the latest Strategy Group meeting had been constructive, particularly in overhauling power unit penalties and increasing restrictions on driver aids.
“There were some very important decisions made, quickly and efficiently to deal with issues in Formula One from Austria in terms of penalties. I thought we did a good job with all of that,” he said.
“There are three or four initiatives, if you like, that now need to go through the process.
“Initially, those have to go through the engine manufacturers, the FIA, the commercial rights holder or a combination of them to see if they have merit and can go to the next stage, which is for the teams to evaluate.”
They include possible changes to the qualifying and race weekend formats for 2016.
Fernley said many of the suggestions were “purely a conceptual idea” at present. – Reuters