Hamilton: This car makes me smile

Lewis Hamilton says there is a night and day difference between his first feelings with the 2010 car and the troubled start to last year.

The 2008 World Champion had his first taste of McLaren's MP4-25 at Valencia on Tuesday, taking over from test driver Gary Paffett.

Hamilton covered 108 laps during his day's action, setting the third quickest time, 0.534s off the pace of P1 holder Felipe Massa.

It was a marked difference to pre-season testing at this same time last year when Hamilton often found himself near the back of the timesheets, some days even two seconds off the pace. And the Brit was delighted with the upgrade.

"It was great to be back in the car for the first time this year and to feel something different. It was a great first day," said Hamilton.

"It's too early to say that this is a car that can challenge, but I do feel it's a huge improvement from the beginning of 2009.

"It was a night-and-day feeling compared to then, and we're not two to three seconds behind.

"So the progress we're going to make from here into the last test and the first race, hopefully we can do as good a job as we did in 2009.

"We're hopeful to be competing. We were third (quickest), so we were not last, which is a nice feeling.

"The encouraging thing is reliability. We've had two days and not really had any problems, and that's a huge plus for us.

"I've kept a close eye on the development of this car," added Hamilton.

"I've seen the car evolve and having had input into it, I was very excited to see what parts had improved.

"Hopefully we've got rid of a lot of bugs we had in the previous car, and we got it, and it felt good.

"I got out smiling. All the problems I had in the last car, I don't have in this one.

"So for me, this was everything I could have asked for from a first day. It's gone well.

"We felt quite comfortable with what we did, but obviously there is a bit of time we need to find and a lot of areas where we can improve."

However, speaking to Autosport, the McLaren did add a note of caution: "There is quite a bit of time we need to find. Obviously the Ferrari seems very quick, and so does the Sauber. But we don't want fuel loads everyone else was on.

"But hopefully we will be competing. At the moment we were third - so we are not last, which is a nice feeling."

Hamilton: This car makes me smile - Planet-F1 News from planet-f1.com

yeah yeah.. well see mid season...