Lewis Hamilton: Friday Practice Wasn't a True Indication Of Our Pace

Lewis Hamilton has been quick to defend McLaren's shocking times in both of yesterday's practice sessions.  The Brit, who was second quickest in the morning session managed only ninth in the afternoon session behind drivers such as Nico Rosberg and Jarno Trulli.

The weather for yesterday's morning session started dry, but only thirty minutes in and it started to rain.  The track and air temperatures remained cold throughout the day.

The 23 year old was quick to defend McLaren's pace in yesterday's afternoon session.

“Our car was blindingly quick this morning despite the cold weather, which made the track feel quite slippery,” said the Briton.

“This afternoon we focused on our race pace—but we were interrupted by the threat of rain and the changeable wind direction."

Hamilton only has to finish fifth in Sunday's race in order to secure the Drivers Championship, but in order to do this, he is going to have to hope that Saturday's Qualifying session goes better than Friday's practices—the last thing Hamilton needs going into the first corner of Brazil is to be in the middle of traffic.

With the changeable track yesterday, Hamilton's second practice session was full or small errors and locked wheels, all the time adding precious tenths of a second onto his already long lap-time.

“I flat-spotted my tyres on a couple of runs, but I’m positive that the changes we’ve made will put us in a good position for tomorrow.”

Practice was even worse for Hamilton's team-mate, Heikki Kovalainen, who only managed to finish yesterday's second session in a measly 15th place, however, he says the set up on his MP4-23 is to his liking.

Speaking to British ITV Kovalainen said, “A decent Friday practice session and we now have a good understanding of tyre performance following our comparison work and evaluation."

“We were fine-tuning the balance of the car all the time and the outcome makes me happy, although this isn’t reflected in the fastest lap times.

“So we’ve found a good baseline to work on for the rest of the weekend.”

McLaren Team Boss Ron Dennis also excused the poor performance and was confident that the rest of the weekend would play into McLaren's hands, along with the Drivers Championship.

“Today was a slightly tricky day for many of the teams—with graining, particularly of the option tyre, a particular problem with the less-than-optimal track temperatures caused by the inclement weather conditions,” said Dennis.

“In fact, we suspect that some teams may have dropped their fuel loads in an effort to nullify that problem, but we didn't."

“Instead we adhered to a disciplined programme, all the while assessing our raceable options."

“We made steady progress with our understanding of the available down-force levels, tyre choices and brake materials, and we feel confident that the lessons we learned today will pay dividends on Sunday.”

Saturday's Qualifying Session will give the fans a first look at what the weekend should pan out like.  The weather for the weekend is expected to be dry for Qualifying with a 30% chance of rain during Sunday's race.  Even at this late stage, it is difficult to say who will be taking the Driver's Championship Title home with them.  However, I think it's more than fair to say that the Constructor's trophy won't be sat in Woking, UK.