McLaren ace lifted by support of 10,000 “insane” fans

More than 10,000 fans showed up at Silverstone yesterday, for the third and final day of testing before next month’s British GP. That’s a crazy number for an F1 session not taking place over a grand prix weekend.

Most of them were there to see Lewis Hamilton, and the McLaren driver rewarded them by setting the fastest lap of the day, by a mile. Hamilton’s mark of 1:19.170 was almost seven tenths of a second quicker than second-fastest driver, Toyota’s Timo Glock.

Full timesheet and Lewis quotes below:

Day 3 timesheet, Silverstone:

1. Lewis Hamilton (McLaren) 01:19.170 (88 laps completed)
2. Timo Glock (Toyota) 01:19.815 (79 laps)
3. Kimi Räikkönen (Ferrari) 01:20.321 (60 laps)
4. Fernando Alonso (Renault) 01:20.862 (78 laps)
5. Nick Heidfeld (BMW) 01:21.011 (93 laps)
6. Kazuki Nakajima (Williams) 01:21.059 (70 laps)
7. Adrian Sutil (Force India) 01:21.331 (71 laps)
8. Rubens Barrichello (Honda) 01:21.367 (94 laps)
9. Sebastian Bourdais (Toro Rosso) 01:21.432 (76 laps)
10. David Coulthard (Red Bull) 01:22.232 (31 laps)

Hamilton was buoyed to see so many fans at the circuit; F1 test days usually attract hundreds of people, not thousands.

“Driving into Silverstone this morning felt really cool,” Hamilton said. “I couldn’t believe how many fans were at the track so early in the morning. They’re pretty special, the most dedicated F1 supporters in the world.

“At lunchtime, there were so many people waiting outside my garage, it was insane. Whilst I couldn’t say hi to all of them, their support always gives me a special lift at this place.”