McLaren F1
Lewis Expects To Be Back At The Front
By Sam Cooper
April 3 2008
Following a dire race in Sepang, Lewis Hamilton is expecting to be back on the pace for this weekends Grand Prix in Bahrain. Lewis finished in 5th place, he was demoted 5 places on the grid and made a brilliant start, though wheelgun problems at his first pit stop halted his charge. Dispite closing down on Jarno Trulli at almost a second a lap, he was unable to overtake the Italian for 4th.
The season started well for Lewis and McLaren, as Ferrari struggled with horrible reliability problems which ended Kimi Raikkonens and Felipe Massa's races. Though, in spite of these problems, Kimi managed to salvage a single point, while Lewis won the race with ease.
Things took a complete U-turn for Lewis in Malaysia, a five place grid penalty blighted the start to his race but a wheel gun problem at his first stop turned things from bad to worse, Lewis managed to salvage 5th place, even though he was stuck behind Red Bulls Mark Webber during critical parts of the race.
“I think when we went to Malaysia we easily had a very good package and obviously with a couple of hiccups, not only being put five places back but also with the pit stop issue we had, we sort of just didn't get the best from the weekend,” he said in Thursday’s pre-event press conference.
“But I think our underlying pace was as good as Ferrari's, if not a little bit slower, but we had the car to be in the top three. So that still gives us confidence and I think coming here we would have learned from the mistake we made in the last race and look forward.”
“Some of the braking zones are a little bit out of your sight, but it's a really cool circuit, I really do enjoy it,” he said.
“I've had a great time here for the past few years, especially the first time I came here [in 2004] where I sort of thought my career was over and managed to pull a miracle out of the bag and me and Nico [Rosberg] were on the podium.
“But last year was great here, from here I was leading the world championship but coming here this year I obviously want to do one better.
“I think we're in a good position to do that.” He added.
McLaren, like main rivals Ferrari, are bringing a slightly modified package to this weekends event. Whether this will improves McLarens pace remains to be seen.
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