Planet-F1

Fri: McLaren, Ferrari, Red Bull

Friday 18th July 2008

Lewis Hamilton set the pace in Germany ahead of the two Ferraris, Heikki Kovalainen and Mark Webber.

McLaren
Lewis Hamilton: The car felt quite different this afternoon compared to this morning's running. Maybe the wind had picked up, or changed direction, but the car didn't feel as stable. But by the end of the session, however, the car felt a lot more consistent - we found a good direction with the tyres and the set-up and so things look positive for tomorrow."

Heikki Kovalainen: The front-end of the car felt very good, but I felt less comfortable with the rear of the car, particularly in some of the slow-speed corners. But we made a number of small changes to the set-up and, by the middle of the session, I definitely felt I could push harder and found improved handling under both braking and traction. A good start to our weekend's work."

Ferrari
Felipe Massa: All in all, it was a good day. We were always competitive, as were our main rivals. It won't be a stroll in the park, but we can take them on. We also worked on a wet track and I feel I can claim we will be on the pace in any conditions. There was not much difference, today at least, in pure performance terms between the hard and soft tyres but I think the latter will be a little bit quicker still and will definitely be the right choice for qualifying. Now we have to study our data to be in the best possible shape for both qualifying and the race."

Kimi Raikkonen: Friday's results always need to be looked at with a degree of caution as you never know for certain what the other teams were doing and today is no exception to that rule. For our part, we tried to improve the set-up of the car compared to the point we had reached at the end of the test and we found, especially towards the end of the day, a few settings that could be interesting. So, I am reasonably pleased with how things went and I think that there is still room for improvement. The times of our main rivals? As I said at the start, there are too many question marks to be certain: what I can say is that we will be competitive, especially as right up until the final minutes, the times were all very similar."

Red Bull
Mark Webber: We didn't get all the running in that we expected to, as we had an electrical problem with the car this afternoon and were a little bit on the back foot. But, at least we did some testing here last week and we've got some good information to go through. The temperatures are unusually cool this year and that's something we have to get used to, normally the German Grand Prix is pretty hot, but nonetheless we'll be fighting as usual."

David Coulthard: green track means it's more difficult regarding tyres, as the track's rubbering in, which has an effect on graining and things like that. But, it's the same for everyone. Other than that, it was a normal Friday practice for us."