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Lewis Hamilton was in an upbeat mood after practice at Hockenheim, despite a heavy crash in the wet morning session.

The damage meant that Hamilton did not get out until the last 10 minutes of the dry afternoon session, but still managed to get seventh place and gain at least some knowledge about the prime tyres and the track.

“It’s been quite an interesting day for me!,” said Hamilton. “The guys have done an incredible job because I damaged the car quite heavily this morning. I was a little bit upset with myself, because when you see the guys work so hard during the week putting the car together then you get there and do only a few laps and you total the car.

“It was very, very slippery. What was actually a relief was when I came back and everyone explained to me how it occurred. I hit the limiter and upshifted and I spun the wheels. Obviously a moment which I tried to correct and didn’t correct it well enough or whatever, and it put me off onto the grass. And I was just a passenger.

“It took all four corners pretty much off. It was a huge, huge amount of work for the guys, and they are just phenomenal. They did such an awesome job. I got back out and I only 10 laps to do. Seven tenths off, and I only ran the prime tyre.

“Generally it felt good to get back in, and it’s good to get back out and overcome the difficulty you had in the morning. We missed the rain which was good, at least I’ve got something to go and work on now. I have a good feel for where the car is and hopefully can make some good set-up changes overnight.”

Hamilton said he’s not worried about not having any experience of the supersoft option tyre.

“It’s not really a setback. I had the choice of going out on the options but I because I hadn’t done any laps this weekend I thought it was only sensible for me to go out on the prime.”

He says that the team is likely to stick with the blown diffuser floor, which was tried by both drivers today.

“I’m very, very fortunate. I damaged the floor they worked so hard to get here this weekend, but we have a spare one. We’re going to continue to use it, and hopefully get some good information on it. Today we got some good information. From that we’ll just continue to work with it and try to improve it.

“It’s definitely not perfect, it’s not something you just put on and drive with the original balance of the car you had before, you have to change the balance a little bit. And also you driving has to change a little bit, because when you get on the power you should have a lot more downforce. It’s how you use it, I guess. We’ve got to work on that.

“For me it feels very similar to what it did at Silverstone. The corner entries maybe seem to be a little better, but it’s a completely different track, much slower speed. But it’s not bad. Hopefully if we keep working in it will be even better later.

Jenson Button admits he has to do better in qualifying is he is to maintain a challenge for the title this year.

Jenson has been scoring points regularly, but has not started ahead of McLaren team mate Lewis Hamilton since the fourth race in China.

“Compared to my team mate I need to qualify better,” said Button. “In Valencia I made a mistake, completely my fault. In the last race, I struggled with the set-up, because the car was oversteery. I took a lot of front wing out of the car and I just lost downforce for qualifying, that was the basic issue.

“I’m not putting too much pressure on myself. I’m pretty confident that if I start far back I can have a good race, but I want to start at the front and make my life a bit easier. It’s nothing to get too worked up about, it’s about fine tuning the set-up on Friday and Saturday and making sure the car is to my liking when we go into qualifying.

“Compared to the Red Bulls you would say that we do need a bit more performance in qualifying. That is a team effort, but I also have to work on myself, with the engineers, in making sure I get a set-up that I’m happy with going into qualifying. There are two parts to it, really. But this blown diffuser, if it works this weekend, will be competitive, and we can really challenge the Red Bulls.”

Button acknowledges that McLaren cannot rely on bad luck for RBR proving a helping hand: “We have to be challenging for victories every race we go to now. We can’t just be hoping that we do a better job on the race weekend.”

Lewis Hamilton admits he wanted to keep McLaren’s new diffuser on the car after practice at Silverstone, but says he’s happy that the team decided to take the conservative route and take it off.

After running the update kit on the Friday McLaren went back to a standard spec, but the team will run the new parts again in Germany tomorrow before taking a final decision on the rest of the weekend.

After a change of mind this week both cars will run the new floor and will be in identical spec, although Hamilton’s car will run with extra sensors at the start of practice. He’s confident that it will represent a useful improvement.

“For me when I put it on I felt something pretty cool,” said Hamilton on Thursday. “I’m just excited every time you get a new component and you feel the benefit. I felt some of the improvements there, but I was losing in other places, and it actually balanced itself out, and would probably be a little bit slower.

“So it was a good move by the team. At the height of the moment you want to take a risk, ‘Let’s keep it,’ and then you think about the championship, and [it’s] ‘You know what, it’s a good point, we should take a step back.’

“I think we’re confident that we’ve made another step forward in understanding it and trying to improve it and trying to make it work better than it was then. But we still plan on running sensors and that kind of thing to fully understand it. I’m sure it’s still not optimised. So we’ll keep on working with it, and I’m sure the other teams have to do the same thing. We don’t expect this weekend for it to be bang on, perfect. If it is then fantastic, but it’s unlikely.”

Hamilton said he hopes that the weather allows the team some dry running.

“For us of course it’s important in terms of our development if we want to get the most out and understand the most from the tests. It would be great if it were dry, because you can’t really test things in the wet.

“That’s why if you have a wet test day in Jerez you don’t really do anything, it’s difficult to get good readings because the grip is so low. So we have to wait and see. If it stays wet all weekend, you never know, we might end up having to do our testing at the next race.”

Robert Kubica expects Bridgestone’s tyre choice and the threat of rain to make the German GP weekend unpredictable.

Friday’s practice is almost certain to be wet, and there’s a chance of rain on Saturday, which means that teams could struggling to get much knowledge of the supersoft and hard tyres.

“I think it will be tricky, and definitely the weather can have a big influence,” said Kubica on Thursday in Hockenheim. “Even if it’s dry, it depends on the temperature, on the track conditions, which will have a big influence especially on the soft tyre, but also on the hard tyre. So it looks like a tricky weekend from the tyre point of view.

“For racing it might be something different, it might be difficult. To be honest it’s difficult to say what will happen and how big an influence it will have on the show.”

Kubica says a lack of dry running could help or hinder particular drivers.

“It can work in both ways, it can work in a good direction for you, a benefit, or a disadvantage, depending on overall car performance and how you set-up your car. There were some races where we started Friday very strong, there were some weekends where we started Friday and we were struggling, with not an ideal set-up or balance of the car.

“Of course this will make quite a big [influence] if for example the first time we put dry tyres will be Sunday at the start of the race. This will make for sure quite difficult life, and it will be difficult to predict what you need from the car and stuff like this. So it looks like a pretty interesting weekend from a tyre point of view and weather points of view.”

Kubica says it’s very hard to judge how the form book will look this weekend, not least because teams are now honing their recent developments.

“It’s very difficult to predict. In Silverstone our gap was quite big compared to the top cars, and we struggled much more in qualifying. We’ll have to see. A lot of people are having F-Ducts and blown floors, so it’s getting quite a difficult task for us.

“A lot of teams are getting on top of the F-Duct, so now the F-Duct is working properly, so again it will be I think quite a difficult weekend from the performance point of view. As I said before it’s difficult to judge and get a proper idea.”

Jacques Villeneuve has made his first proper comment on his plans to set up an F1 team.

On Monday he refused to elaborate to this writer, but yesterday night he put out a short statement on his website, apparently in response to suggestions that Libyan Saadi Gaddafi was involved in the project.

The statement read: “There are a number of rumours circulating at the moment and I wanted to clarify a few things before this gets out of hand.

“The team will be a joint venture with Durango, and based out of Italy. To be clear, right now all the money comes from corporate sponsorship, and not personal investors.”

Intriguingly sometime soccer player Gaddafi has some connections with Tamoil, which is part owned by the Libyan Investment Authority. The company used to back Juventus and has been involved with motor sport in the past.

Villeneuve has his hands full this week as he is competing in the Brickyard 400.

The proposed Villeneuve Racing F1 project is actually a partnership with former GP2 team Durango.

The Italian outfit announced its intention to enter some months ago, amid scepticism reflecting the fact that having failed to find enough money to stay afloat in GP2, it seemed an unlikely candidate for an F1 entry.

However the addition to the mix of Villeneuve and his manager Rick Gorne – one of the founders of BAR – has clearly made it a more interesting proposition.

“Jacques is an energetic and willing guy,” Durango team boss Ivone Pinton told website 422race. “I really hope together we will find a place. For Durango, to work with him is an honour and a privilege: we are talking about the son of a myth and a former World Champion. Even if I know him since he was 16. And I always said that, whenever he’s OK, he’s a great driver, who won in every series.”

Pinto did not reveal anything about potential technical partners, although it’s worth noting that having ended its deal with HRT, Dallara could be available. Durango is also known to have talked to Toyota.

 “We still don’t know where the car would be built, but the home of the team will be ours, in Italy.”

Regarding Villeneuve’s role, Pinton said: “Together with being driver, I’m sure he will actively contribute to the company. I think he’s preparing himself the job to do after he quits driving.”

Bruno Senna will be back in the HRT at German GP, but Sakon Yamamoto will be in the other car as Karun Chandhok has been asked to step down.

While Senna’s absence at Silverstone is believed to be the result of a form of disciplinary action by team boss Colin Kolles, Chandhok’s absence can only be explained by financial necessity. It’s thought that his deal is contingent on sponsorship, whereas Senna’s is not.

Yamamoto finished right behind Chandhok at Silverstone, although the Indian driver had suffered bodywork damage early on.

An HRT statement said: “After Sakon Yamamoto gave a very positive performance in Silverstone, the team has decided to give the Japanese driver another opportunity to drive the car alongside Bruno Senna. Karun Chandhok is still part of the Hispania Racing, HRT F1 Team family and is likely to be in the car at some later races this season.”

There was no further comment from Kolles on the driver situation.

Yamamoto said: “I have a lot of good memories of the circuit in Hockenheim. I like the track layout with the passing point at the end of the long straight and also the Stadium sector, which is very challenging. There is always a nice atmosphere with the spectators at the grandstands and I am always looking forward to come back to Hockenheim.

“Compared to Silverstone, I think we are more competitive and we can achieve a good result again. The last race weekend was very exciting for me. Now, the team has given me another chance to race on Sunday and I will do my best to prove that it was the right decision.”

Chandhok will be spectating at the Brands Hatch F2 event this weekend.

Combs and Hellmund (far right) were part of the Austin delegation

Texas Comptroller Susan Combs – in effect the state’s chief financial officer – has headed off potential criticism of the US GP in Austin by insisting that the deal is already done.

Combs has committed the state to a $25m a year payment from the Texas Special Events Fund. That is designed to cover expenses related to major events, and is believed to in essence represent the annual fee paid to host the race. The state is not involved in the actual development of the circuit, but local media has suggested that not all taxpayers will be supportive.

“The legislation is already passed, it’s a done deal,” Combs told this blog. “I think they’re going to be very excited.”

Combs was at Silverstone last weekend with a group from Texas that included promoter Tavo Hellmund and other key figures in the project. It was her first visit to a Grand Prix, and from a base at Bernie Ecclestone’s motorhome the Austin delegation met a number of key F1 figures.

“It’s very, very exciting,” she said of the event. “It has lots of technology, which I found particularly interesting, and it’s a real crowd pleaser, a real show. We’re now more excited. With the incredible impact that this has on England, we hope to have a similar impact on the United States.”

She has no doubts about what a race can achieve: “It’s going to put Texas on the international and global map, it’s going to put Austin on the international and global map, and it will brand Texas as the home of cars.”

The race was also Hellmund’s first visit to a race since he became a promoter.

“I think there’s a lot of excitement,” he told me. “People are looking forward to coming to Austin, and it’s been great. I was going to try to go to Montreal, but had a scheduling conflict. I needed to bring some of my partners over and it just coincided that the Comptroller was going to make a visit to a Grand Prix as well just to see the size and the scope and everything, so the timing was perfect.

“There’s about 12 people here. Two or three of them are partners of mine. We’ve got some of our legal team, and a couple of our communications people. I needed for them to get to know the FOM system, see how things run are run at a Grand Prix.”

Hellmund insists that his plans are moving ahead: “We’re almost done with the design stuff. We’ve changed a few things based on the site, and the biggest thing is trying to finish the proper plan for the FIA Circuit Commission. I believe that’s in September. The Tilke people have been in Austin pretty much non stop and have met with our architects and our contractors. We’re hammer down.”

Jose Maria Lopez says that US F1 management didn’t tell him the truth and admits that his short involvement with the failed team was ’embarrassing.’

The Argentine driver was announced by the team in January after co-founder Peter Windsor met the country’s president. Days later it became apparent that the project was in serious trouble.

Lopez went to the British GP with his manager Victor Rosso in attempt to find an opportunity for nxet season.

“At the time I felt terrible,” Lopez told this blog. “I was lucky to have the opportunity, but the way that everything went put me and the people working with me in an embarrassing situation. They met the president, they promised us everything. All the time we were asking if they will make it, all the time they would say no problem we’re going to make it.

“They said we were going to be in the first race, and they didn’t make it all. It was disappointed because while I didn’t spend too much time with the team, I built a little bit of a relationship with everybody there.”

Lopez said it wasn’t year clear if he will see the money that was already paid.

“I don’t know, there are people working on that. I think at the end of the day they could have told us the truth before. They knew that they were not going to make it, but they kept saying to us they could do it, and we trusted them. They didn’t tell us the truth.”

Lopez, who used to be a Renault F1 test driver, hopes to find an F1 seat for next year.

“We still have some support, there are still a lot of people who want me to race in F1. Today we don’t have too many things. We keep trying because it helped us last year, even if we didn’t make it we managed to have a lot of contact with people, with a lot of teams.

“Some teams know we are around, and we have people who want to do F1. So we’ll see. There’s nothing today that we can say it’s 50 or 80 or 90%.”

Lotus Racing boss Tony Fernandes is in the process of acquiring the rights for the traditional Team Lotus name – opening up the possibility for a formal renaming of the outfit for next season.

Team Lotus was bought by former F3000 driver David Hunt at the end of 1994, but plans to move it on quickly as a going concern failed to come to fruition and the operation folded. The name was briefly allied to Pacific GP in 1995, and Hunt and two partners have held on to it ever since.

When Fernandes started his F1 project this time last year he had to use the Lotus Racing name, but he has been in contact with Hunt recently, and a deal is finally in the pipeline.

The return of the Team Lotus name will in effect mean that there are no loose ends and provide a formal link not just with the past but also with Classic Team Lotus, the historic car operation run by Colin Chapman’s son Clive.