Crash gives Hamilton’s team a sleepless night
LEWIS Hamilton has apologised
to McLaren for the smash that
will leave his mechanics working
through the night to fix the damage.
The world championship
leader was involved in his second
accident of a Formula One weekend
ahead of tomorrow's
Bahrain Grand Prix.
Hamilton conceded the shunt
ten minutes from the end of the
second practice session was of
his own making.
The 23-year-old lost the rear
end of his car through turn six of
the Sakhir Circuit before sliding
sideways across a run-off area
and with some force into a tyre
wall.
Although Hamilton emerged
from the cockpit unscathed after
a few moments to compose himself,
his car was in a far less
healthy state.
It didn't hurt, and was just
one of those things,'' said Hamilton,
who suffered severely
bruised ribs after ploughing nose
first into a tyre wall at the Nurburgring
in qualifying for last
year's European Grand Prix.
As for the chassis, I think
we're okay. The car was quite
badly damaged, but the team will
do a good job to fix it.
I apologise to the guys, but
this is racing. This is what happens
and I'm fine about it. I'm
just eager to get back out there.
Tomorrow's another day, and
we've a good car, so I feel quite
comfortable.''
Hamilton and team-mate Heikki
Kovalainen both trailed the
Ferrari duo of Felipe Massa and
world champion Kimi Raikkonen
throughout the two 90-minute
sessions.
Yet Hamilton, who has a threepoint
lead in the title race after
the opening two grands prix in
Australia and Malaysia, added: I
rate my chances.
Ferrari are very quick again,
as always, but we are close, and
I'm sure we'll both show our true
colours tomorrow, so we will
have to wait and see.''
Hamilton still ended the second
session with the fourth
quickest time, albeit almost 1.5
seconds down on Massa.
Massa certainly appeared as if
he was trying to prove his worth
at Ferrari by posting the fastest
time in both sessions.
The 26-year-old has come
under fire of late after his performances
in the opening two
races, from which he has
emerged pointless.
Although an engine failure accounted
for Massa in Melbourne,
that was only after he had spun
off the track at the first corner
and was later involved in a shunt
with Red Bull's David Coulthard.
Then 12 days ago in Sepang,
the Brazilian suffered a loss of
concentration that saw him spin
out of the race while holding on
to a comfortable second place.
Massa knows the pressure is
mounting on his shoulders and
that he cannot afford similar
mistakes this weekend.
He did not put a wheel wrong
over the three practice hours,
with his best lap time one minute
31.240 seconds, a second quicker
than his pole position lap of a
year ago.
This is undoubtedly a track
Massa loves as he was a pole-toflag
winner last season, and there
is every prospect he could repeat
the feat.
I am pleased with today,'' reflected
Massa.
I think we are working in the
right direction in terms of setting
up the car and so I feel confident
about the rest of the weekend.
I like this track and I think we
will be very competitive.''
Raikkonen was almost a second
adrift, with Kovalainen
third, just edging Hamilton into
fourth.
Coulthard was a strong seventh,
with Jenson Button 11th for
Honda.
12:23pm Saturday 5th April 2008
Print 
Email this 
Comment
What are these links for?
If you liked this article and would like to share it with others on the web who might be searching for good content we've made it easy for you to do it.
At the bottom of all articles, you'll see links to six sites. These sites - commonly called 'social bookmark' or 'social news' sites - have large communities of web users who share and rate interesting, useful and fun things on the web.
Clicking the links will automatically add the address of the story you are reading to one of these sites, letting you share it with others. Each site will ask you to register to share stories. Registration is free and once a member, you can store, recommend and search for stories that interest you.
More on Digg
More on del.icio.us
More on Furl
More on reddit
More on NowPublic/
More on Yahoo!
