Sebastian Vettel set the pace in the Friday afternoon session on the streets of Valencia, with the wind dropping and the sun coming out, pushing up the temperatures considerably. The result was a rather odd top 10 as teams did different work in preparation for the race on Sunday. The top 15 was nonetheless covered by just a second. Second fastest was Nico Hulkenberg in his Force India ahead of Kamui Kobayashi’s Sauber and Michael Schumacher’s Mercedes. Bruno Senna was fifth ahead of Paul di Resta in the second Force India, Fernando Alonso’s Ferrari; Romain Grosjean’s Lotus, Mark Webber’s Red Bull and the Second Mercedes of Nico Rosberg.
Within a second of the fastest time were Kimi Raikkonen, Jenson Button, Pastor Maldonado, Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa. Sergio Perez was 16th but it was a Caterham next in 17th, ahead of the Toro Rosso of Daniel Ricciardo. Heikki Kovalainen was 19th, ahead of Jean-Eric Vergne, followed by the Marussias of Timo Glock and Charles Pic and the HRTs of Narain Karthikeyan and Pedro de la Rosa, the last-named having crashed midway through the session.
I don’t know, but it seems that there is something afoot at McLaren? Unusual for Lewis to be that far back, unless it is strategic planning or to do with tyres.
It is Friday
Alan Permane was saying some weeks back that the smooth tarmac of Monaco was an adverse factor for the Lotus, and here they seem to have the smoothest track of all of them. Still no resolution to the steering issue in sight.
As for Grosjean, he seemed intent on collecting Schum into the run-off. how did Schum avoid it? One of his finest manouvres
Your headline titles are getting pithy and annoying. Sorry but its not necessary all the time
I would say that we have an Armajd Division of opinion on this matter.
I quite like them. I am hoping to see a “Webber BBQ” title for Joe’s Q3 report!
Cheers
Julian