Lewis Hamilton today made the most of a dramatic improvement in form by the McLaren team to set the fastest time in the opening practice sessions for the German Grand Prix at the Nurburgring.

The reigning world champion, who had been enduring a dreadful season behind the wheel of one of the worst cars ever made by McLaren, survived a spin in the quicker afternoon session before stopping the clock on 1min 32.149sec.

That was 0.182sec faster than the Red Bull of British Grand Prix winner Sebastian Vettel, the German desperate to shine in front of his home crowd, and 0.220sec ahead of title-race leader Jenson Button in the Brawn GP.

Mark Webber, previously picked out as a "dark horse" to score his maiden Formula One win on Sunday by Red Bull boss Christian Horner, topped the times in the morning session before dropping to fourth in the afternoon.

But both Red Bull and Brawn GP will now be wary of the new threat posed by Hamilton and team-mate Heikki Kovaleinen, who had come to the ninth round of the 17-race championship optimistic about the combined effect a raft of modifications to McLaren's MP4-24 might have.

McLaren team chief Martin Whitmarsh said: "There is a lot of excitement in the garage.

"We got parts that were due for Hungary in a fortnight's time out here early to try to lift our performance.

"There is a radically different front wing concept on Heikki's car and on Lewis's car there is a completely different floor, a new top body and rear suspension."

Whitmarsh confirmed that McLaren had already started diverting resources towards the design of a more competitive car for 2010.

But he added: "We are a race team and it hurts when we're not at the front. So we've made a big push for Germany and Hungary.

"Hopefully that puts us in the right direction, and to some extent that will feed into next year."

Away from the track, former world rally champion Ari Vatanen of Finland revealed he will run for the presidency of the FIA in October.

That could be in opposition to Max Mosley if the head of motor sport's governing body does a U-turn on his announcement a fortnight ago that he would quit the post.

Mosley is angry that decision was made to look like he was bowing to demands made by the powerful Formula One Teams Association that he should go, and he has subsequently made it known he may stand again for re-election.

But Vatanen, until recently a member of the European Parliament, will have strong support from those seeking a change to Mosley's dictatorial style of leadership and an end to the political wrangling that have tainted the sport.

Vatanen said: "The time has come for a change. My main focus is to reconcile views within the FIA and bring transparency to its stakeholders.

Responding to requests from many FIA member clubs, I shall stand for the presidential elections."