• British Grand Prix

'We've made a step forward' - Lewis

Lewis Hamilton is optimistic the team has made steps forward © Sutton Images

Enlarge

Related Links

• News:
• Button struggling with McLaren updates
  
• Report:
• Webber maintains Red Bull form
  

• Race:
• British Grand Prix

• Championship:
• FIA Formula One World Championship

• Drivers:
• Lewis Hamilton

• Teams:
• McLaren

Lewis Hamilton is confident that McLaren have made important steps forward despite only managing the eighth fastest time of Friday's second free practice session for the British Grand Prix.

McLaren hoped that the upgrades it brought to Silverstone would enable them to further close the performance gap to rival Red Bull. And although Hamilton finished over 1.5 seconds off pace-setter Mark Webber's time, he was not too despondent afterwards.

"I definitely feel we've made a step forward from Valencia," said Hamilton. "This is a track a bit like Barcelona, where you'd see nearly a second gap between ourselves and Red Bull. "I don't think we will be seeing that gap. I think tomorrow will be a lot closer. If we get the car set up right then we should have no problems."

The McLaren team introduced its own version of the blown diffuser so successfully pioneered by Red Bull on Friday but it remains to be seen whether they will continue with it all weekend.

"We put on the new components and I was quite excited this morning and the feeling of the car was quite positive. I was actually surprised about the pace that we had this morning. We made some changes and set-up wise they didn't make the car better, but sometimes you find that's the case.

"So we are going to go back to the set-up we had before and start from there again and hopefully tomorrow the set-up will be better. But generally I think the performance of the car is good."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.