China Practise 3: This Will Be Tough
By Alianora La Canta
April 18 2009
After Friday practise, a lot of work will have gone into the cars to get them to handle better. The last thing Force India needs is for them to go flying off in the race with the readiness of the initial day in Shanghai. Unfortunately, Force India didn't manage to get much pace out of the car in the process...
By Alianora La Canta
April 18 2009
After Friday practise, a lot of work will have gone into the cars to get them to handle better. The last thing Force India needs is for them to go flying off in the race with the readiness of the initial day in Shanghai. Unfortunately, Force India didn't manage to get much pace out of the car in the process...
10:00am - The Force India drivers are in the initial queue to leave the garage - Giancarlo Fisichella 4th (after doing a practise start in the designated place) and Adrian Sutil 7th.
10:03am - Nico Rosberg slides off the road and into the gravel trap by the pit lane a la Lewis Hamilton in 2007. Giancarlo, immediately behind him, manages to avoid the same fate to pit normally. Adrian does the same.
10:18am - Both Force India drivers re-join the track, equipped with soft tyres.
10:21am - Giancarlo runs very wide at Turn 1. As a result, his first flying lap is 2.547 seconds off the pace.
10:24am - Adrian locked a tyre bigstyle on a lap that was still good enough for 12th, 1.669 seconds behind Massa and placing him ahead of Giancarlo.
10:25am - Giancarlo responds with a 1:39.291, making him 13th and 0.190 seconds off Adrian. However, he remains 2.262 seconds off Raikkonen's P1 time.
10:26am - Giancarlo sets a time good enough for 12th, but such is the rate of change that he is already 16th by the time Adrian takes 15th place about 30 seconds later.
10:29am - Adrian has pitted. He has completed six laps and graining had just set in.
10:30am - Giancarlo has pitted, having completed seven laps. Graining started for him on lap 6 of the run.
10:39am - Both Force Indias have started a new stint on hard tyres. The times, as yesterday, are around a second off the soft tyre times.
10:46am - Gradual improvements from both drivers, but Adrian is still 18th and Giancarlo is still 19th. Worse, they are steadily losing touch with the rest of the field - they are about 2.2 seconds off Trulli's time by this stage. Fluctuations in sector times suggest that the car still isn't handling particularly well.
10:49am - Both Force India drivers have pitted.
10:56am - They're out on track again. Probably softs.
10:57am - Adrian Sutil sportingly lets Nico Rosberg past on his warm-up lap - and is then stuck behind the Williams driver for some time.
10:58am - Adrian gets a 1:37.534, 1.401 seconds slower than Rosberg's eventual fastest time. Giancarlo's time is a 1:37.732, 0.198 seconds further adrift.
11:00am - Neither driver improves, but Adrian does set a green sector 2. End of session.
Adrian is 17th and Giancarlo is 18th. I would love to have hope for qualifying, but Vettel, Webber (immediately ahead), Alonso and Glock (immediately behind) all had technical problems preventing them from doing the final part of the practise session. Once they're taken out of the equation, the next driver (Bourdais) is exactly 0.7 seconds ahead. This is also the gap between Bourdais and Rosberg (who is in P1).
This is going to be tough.
10:03am - Nico Rosberg slides off the road and into the gravel trap by the pit lane a la Lewis Hamilton in 2007. Giancarlo, immediately behind him, manages to avoid the same fate to pit normally. Adrian does the same.
10:18am - Both Force India drivers re-join the track, equipped with soft tyres.
10:21am - Giancarlo runs very wide at Turn 1. As a result, his first flying lap is 2.547 seconds off the pace.
10:24am - Adrian locked a tyre bigstyle on a lap that was still good enough for 12th, 1.669 seconds behind Massa and placing him ahead of Giancarlo.
10:25am - Giancarlo responds with a 1:39.291, making him 13th and 0.190 seconds off Adrian. However, he remains 2.262 seconds off Raikkonen's P1 time.
10:26am - Giancarlo sets a time good enough for 12th, but such is the rate of change that he is already 16th by the time Adrian takes 15th place about 30 seconds later.
10:29am - Adrian has pitted. He has completed six laps and graining had just set in.
10:30am - Giancarlo has pitted, having completed seven laps. Graining started for him on lap 6 of the run.
10:39am - Both Force Indias have started a new stint on hard tyres. The times, as yesterday, are around a second off the soft tyre times.
10:46am - Gradual improvements from both drivers, but Adrian is still 18th and Giancarlo is still 19th. Worse, they are steadily losing touch with the rest of the field - they are about 2.2 seconds off Trulli's time by this stage. Fluctuations in sector times suggest that the car still isn't handling particularly well.
10:49am - Both Force India drivers have pitted.
10:56am - They're out on track again. Probably softs.
10:57am - Adrian Sutil sportingly lets Nico Rosberg past on his warm-up lap - and is then stuck behind the Williams driver for some time.
10:58am - Adrian gets a 1:37.534, 1.401 seconds slower than Rosberg's eventual fastest time. Giancarlo's time is a 1:37.732, 0.198 seconds further adrift.
11:00am - Neither driver improves, but Adrian does set a green sector 2. End of session.
Adrian is 17th and Giancarlo is 18th. I would love to have hope for qualifying, but Vettel, Webber (immediately ahead), Alonso and Glock (immediately behind) all had technical problems preventing them from doing the final part of the practise session. Once they're taken out of the equation, the next driver (Bourdais) is exactly 0.7 seconds ahead. This is also the gap between Bourdais and Rosberg (who is in P1).
This is going to be tough.
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China Practise 3: This Will Be Tough
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