Lewis Hamilton made his presence known in Sepang earlier today by setting the fastest lap time in the post-Australia test in Malaysia. On a dry track the British driver managed a time 0.2s faster than his nearest rival on the day, Mark Webber. However, the rain soon moved in which saw lap times gradually fall off the McLaren pace setter. Ralf Schumacher continued yesterdays promising improvements by placing his Toyota in third, just narrowly edging out Vitantonio Liuzzi un the Toro Rosso.

Ferrari ran Felipe Massa today allowing yesterday’s fastest man Kimi Raikkonen an opportunity to rest. Williams adopted a similar approach running Nico Rosberg in replacement of Alex Wurz, who tested brake and cooling components on his FW29.

Honda returned to beat sister team Super Aguri, although at the present time it isn’t a convincing performance as Jenson Button only went 0.2s faster than fellow Brit Anthony Davidson. Jenson managed to complete a lengthy 92 laps in his upgraded RA107, while Davidson mustered just 44 before calling it a day.

Nick Heidfeld and Heikki Kovalainen finished the order of the ten drivers participating. Heidfeld suffered an oil leak early in the day which impeded his chances of capitalising on the dry weather, and Kovalainen could only lap 20 times as Renault were awaiting parts to be sent from the team factory in Enstone.

The team did its utmost to ensure the delay cost us as little track time as possible as we prepared the car. It is always disappointing not to get the most from the day, but it is not a major worry, especially as the conditions today were not particularly good. Christian Silk.

Nine of the ten teams have agreed to extend the testing at Sepang to Friday due to the poor weather experienced today. The only team not to continue testing are Toro Rosso, and Spyker were not present at any of the tests in Malaysia. The teams will hand around until the Grand Prix in ten days.

1. Hamilton – McLaren – 1m35.918s
2. Webber – Red Bull Racing – 1m36.138s
3. Schumacher – Toyota – 1m36.700s
4. Liuzzi – Toro Rosso – 1m36.712s
5. Massa – Ferrari – 1m36.947s
6. Rosberg – Williams – 1m37.070s
7. Button – Honda – 1m37.472s
8. Davidson – Super Aguri – 1m37.606s
9. Heidfeld – BMW – 1m38.551s
10. Kovalainen – Renault – 1m39.654s

Formula One, F1, Testing, McLaren, Lewis Hamilton