2008 Testing - Hamilton back in the saddle

Eurosport - Thu, 10 Jan 18:51:00 2008

Lewis Hamilton finally turned in his first laps of 2008 as he put McLaren's new MP4-23 through its paces at Jerez in Spain.

Having been forced to watch from the sidelines as Heikki Kovalainen and Pedro de la Rosa gave the car its first day of testing, the 23-year-old Briton, who narrowly missed out on last year's world title by one point, put the McLaren through its paces.

Hamilton's best of 103 laps was 1:19.132, which was faster than de la Rosa's day one best by half a second, delighting him.

"It was fantastic to get my hands on the MP4-23 this morning in Jerez. I saw the completed car for the first time on Monday at the team's launch in Stuttgart and I have been pretty impatient since then!

"My first run was at 09:10 and my first impressions are encouraging. I covered over 103 laps, which is 456kms, today. Considering this is only the second day the car has been on track, I am pretty happy with that.

"We have a lot of work to do, but now we have a real understanding of where we are starting from."

His new team-mate Kovalainen had his second day of running, completing 101 laps and ending up three tenths of a second slower than Hamilton.

"Today was my second day with the MP4-23 and I have now been able to complete over 447kms in total," Kovalainen said. "We are all still spending time learning about the car and starting to get used to it.

"That we were on track for 204 laps in total today is definitely helping us to learn and progress with the car.

"For me in particular the car is very different from last year, and I have been focusing on that side of things. Settling into the team has been very easy, and I am looking forward to continuing our preparations for Melbourne.

Hamilton and Kovalainen will both test for one more day at Jerez before continuing for three more days next week.