French GP: McLaren Friday practice notes

Vodafone McLaren Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso finished today's second free practice for the French Grand Prix in Magny-Cours in fourth and eighth positions respectively. Lewis completed 36 laps and set a time of 1min15.780 ...

Vodafone McLaren Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso finished today's second free practice for the French Grand Prix in Magny-Cours in fourth and eighth positions respectively. Lewis completed 36 laps and set a time of 1min15.780 whilst Fernando did 32 laps and a time of 1min16.049. In the morning session, Fernando completed 19 laps with a best time of 1min16.154 (third) whilst Lewis did 20 laps with a best time of 1min16.277 (sixth).

Fernando Alonso:

"We managed to complete our programme, and we have a good understanding of the Bridgestone Potenza tyres characteristics in these cooler than expected temperatures. We could have been faster today, and there is still a little bit of work to do tomorrow on the set-up. However I think we will be stronger over the weekend than we appear today and so I am not too worried about the results so far."

Lewis Hamilton:

"This morning was a little frustrating as I missed some track time when the engine protection system came in as a result of the engine running too cool and I stopped on track. Luckily the car was returned with about 45 minutes of the session still to run so I still managed to get quite a few laps in and completed our planned programme in the afternoon session."

Ron Dennis:

"A reasonable Friday practice despite a few minor glitches this morning, but we still made significant steps forward. However there is still room for improvement and we will be working very hard overnight to ensure we are in the best possible shape for tomorrow's qualifying."

Norbert Haug:

"Both drivers completed their planned programmes despite Lewis stopping on track shortly in the morning session. This was caused by an electronic safety control programme which switched off the engine as a precaution because it was running at a lower temperature than we had anticipated before the session. After today's two sessions we are not yet where we want to be, but we gained a lot of valuable data and have a good basis to make another step forward tomorrow."

Chassis allocation
Fernando Alonso: MP4-22 06
Lewis Hamilton: MP4-22 04
T-car: MP4-22 05
Spare: MP4-22 03