Hamilton pays the price for first practice smash

LEWIS HAMILTON paid the price for his smash in first practice as he sat out almost the entire second session ahead of tomorrow’s German Grand Prix.

But with only 12 minutes of track time at Hockenheim and in running for just 10 laps – Toro Rosso’s Jaime Alguersuari completed 48 by contrast – Hamilton still produced a credible performance. The championship leader posted the seventh quickest time, finishing 0.739 seconds behind Fernando Alonso as Ferrari and Red Bull Racing locked out the top four places. But it is the 78 minutes of valuable running that will hurt him and the team the most as his mechanics spent four hours repairing a car that rammed into a tyre wall during the opening 90-minute session.

Heavy rain had fallen for four hours in the morning, leaving pools of standing water on a track that caught out many drivers, the most significant of which was Hamilton.