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.

After finally setting his first timed lap almost 65 minutes in, his programme for the morning was brought to a halt soon after. Hamilton did nothing more than put a wheel on a damp part of the circuit that at that time was beginning to show a drier line in places.

That led to his McLaren getting out of shape, sending Hamilton sliding across the wet grass, and he ploughed nose first into a barrier.

The impact, although not severe, was enough to send him spinning around, resulting in a second collision with the tyres that damaged his left-rear wheel.

McLaren then performed wonders to get him back out on track with a few minutes to spare.

On only his second timed lap Hamilton’s pace was enough to put him within 0.069secs of team-mate Jenson Button, who was 14th at the time. Hamilton eventually finished with a lap of one minute 17.004secs, seven tenths of a second faster than Button who finished down in 15th and who completed 36 laps.

Hamilton’s time will at least be encouraging to McLaren who were again testing the performance-enhancing exhaust blown diffuser that was ditched after Friday practice at the British GP.

It was Alonso, though, who held sway with a lap of 1:16.265, just 0.029secs ahead of home hero Sebastian Vettel in his Red Bull, and who had an engine change at the start of the second session.

Ferrari’s Felipe Massa and Red Bull’s Mark Webber were third and fourth fastest followed by the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher. Behind Hamilton came Renault’s Robert Kubica and the Williams duo of Rubens Barrichello and Nico Hulkenberg ninth and 10th.

The drier conditions led to a ‘normal’ timesheet for the second session as Lotus, Virgin and Hispania Racing occupied the final six places. Hispania’s Bruno Senna and Sakon Yamamoto filled the bottom two spots.