Hamilton says new McLaren a big improvement on 2009

Posted at 12:00am on 02 February 2010

By Matt Majendie

VALENCIA, Spain, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Lewis Hamilton declared the difference between his new McLaren and last year's under-performing car to be "night and day" after testing it for the first time on Tuesday.

The 2008 world champion completed 108 laps in the Mercedes-powered MP4-25 in Valencia to end the day third fastest behind Ferrari's Felipe Massa and Sauber's Japanese rookie Kamui Kobayashi.

"I got out smiling. All the problems I had in the last car, I don't have in this one," the 25-year-old Briton told reporters. "But there are still a lot of areas where we can improve."

A year ago, with Hamilton having the number one on his car as the sport's youngest champion, McLaren turned up at Portugal's Portimao circuit to test the car and realised immediately something was wrong.

It took them half a season of round-the-clock effort to get back on the pace and provide Hamilton with a car capable of winning races again.

"I've kept a close eye on the development of this car, and the results we got in the end of 2009," said Hamilton. "I've seen the car evolve and having had input into it, I was very excited today to see what parts had improved.

"Hopefully we've got rid of a lot of the bugs we had in the previous car."

Hamilton was not unduly worried by the fact that Massa was more than half a second quicker than his best lap.

"Ferrari seem very quick but we don't know what fuel loads everyone has got," he said.

NICE FEELING

"We're not last which is a nice feeling. We're not two or three seconds behind. The encouraging thing is the reliability. We've not really had many problems so that's a bonus for us."

He warned it was "too early days to really know" the team's progress but felt it was still "a huge improvement from the beginning of 2009".

World champion Jenson Button, Hamilton's new team mate, will take over testing duties on Wednesday when Michael Schumacher will also be back in action with Mercedes, who took over Button's former team Brawn GP.

Hamilton will have to wait until the team's subsequent tests in Jerez to get on track with seven-times world champion Schumacher.

"I didn't watch him (Schumacher) yesterday. I arrived around 5.30 so I missed the test but I've seen him in Geneva a couple of times," he said.

Schumacher spent the day in Valencia with his personal trainer ahead of his return to the cockpit of the W01 on Wednesday. On Monday, he proved immediately competitive and finished third of eight runners.

Hamilton said he never doubted the 41-year-old German would be competitive.

(Editing by Alan Baldwin and Pritha Sarkar. To query or comment on this story email sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com)

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