• German Grand Prix

McLaren to race blown diffuser

McLaren worked hard to rebuild Lewis Hamilton's car on Friday © Sutton Images

Enlarge

Related Links

• News:
• Button keen to run McLaren blown diffuser
  

• Race:
• German Grand Prix

• Drivers:
• Jenson Button
• |
• Lewis Hamilton

• Teams:
• McLaren

McLaren has opted to stick with its new blown diffuser for the rest of the German Grand Prix weekend despite a compromised free practice session on Friday.

The team's plans for extensive running was hampered by inclement weather during both of Friday's free practice sessions and a crash by Lewis Hamilton that severely limited his lap time.

Despite the setbacks, McLaren team boss Martin Whitmarsh still believes there is nothing to lose by persevering with the new floor, starting with Saturday's free practice and qualifying sessions.

"Based on the data we will be running it. The problem with today in a sense is that, with the limited running we had, it was difficult for the driver to go out and say this is the way to go. So you have to rely on data," said Whitmarsh. "The data that I saw from P1, albeit wet, was that the main peak airflow, the gas flow from the exhaust, temperatures, the performance, and the pressure tapping velocities were what we expected them to be.

"So unless something else has come to fruition, which I don't think it has, we should have the confidence that this floor will do everything we expected it to or most of what we expected it to."

With regards to Hamilton's accident, Whitmarsh praised his driver for his professionalism and added that the car rebuild will not cost the championship leader in terms of performance.

"I have to congratulate Lewis. He was getting out there late. I was niggling the engineer to say, have a run and then come back and do an option at the end, and it was actually Lewis discipline that said in that limited time I just want to do one run on the prime tyre. He said I know when I put the options on it will be quicker, so I don't need to prove it.

"I spoke to Lewis just now and congratulated it on his discipline because I would probably have tickled him into doing a late run on the option tyre."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.