Practice 2: Vettel a little faster than Hamilton

9 September, 2011

Sebastian Vettel fastest in practice two at Monza

Sep.9 (PVM) Spa-Francorchamps was supposed to be a circuit unsuited to the quirks of the Red Bull RB7, nevertheless Sebastian Vettel went on to win the race two weeks ago – fast forward to Monza, a circuit supposedly not suitable to the Adrian Newey creation, and the runaway championship leader ended the second free practice session of the Italian Grand Prix weekend top of the timing sheets.

Lewis Hamilton was second best in practice session two but ended the day fastest thanks to his time in the morning session

Fastest in the morning, Lewis Hamilton was second best, fractionally slower with the McLaren MP4/26  in qualifying trim during the afternoon but on the long race simulations their pace was apparently a second or more down on Vettel.

Hamilton’s time in the morning, the only one to dip into the 83 seconds zone, was faster than Vettel’s best in the afternoon.

Michael Schumacher gave indication that the Mercedes GP could be well suited to the full throttle nature of the Monza circuit by ending the session third fastest and spending a chunk of time top of the timing screens..

Up next were the Ferrari pair, with Felipe Massa slightly quicker than last year’s winner Fernando Alonso.
Mark Webber was sixth fastest with Jenson Button making up the top half dozen on the timing sheets.

Less than half a second separated the top six, who apart from Massa are still contenders for the title much like last year around the same time in the season.

Michael Schumacher

Next up were a pair of Saubers with Sergio Perez faster than Kamui Kobayashi, a pair Renaults with Bruno Senna again impressing by going quicker than Vitaly Petrov and then Force India duo with Adrian Sutil fractionally quicker than Paul di Resta who sat out the morning session (for Nico Hulkenberg) and has only ever driven at Monza once before – last year during Friday practice.

Kobayashi’s car came to a halt at the very end of the afternoon session with transmission problems.

Nico Rosberg had a frustrating afternoon with KERS issues on his Mercedes GP which cost him the first 45 minutes of the session,while rookie Daniel Ricciardo only managed seven laps in the afternoon due to a faulty alternator which needed to be replaced on the HRT.

Friday, 9 September – Practice 2

Related posts:

1. Practice 1: Hamilton tops as McLaren pair fly
2. Vettel steals pole from Hamilton at wet Spa
3. Practice 3: Webber tops in the wet, wet, wet
4. Practice 2: Webber fastest in brief dry spell
5. Practice 1: Rain spoils play as rookies crash