WilliamsF1 14th & 15th in Saturday German practice


Mark in 15th

By Andrew Hooper
July 29 2006

The WilliamsF1 team would see their drivers only mmanage 14th & 15th after the final Saturday practice for the German Grand Prix. Nico Rosberg would finish ahead of Mark Webber in a session that would see Mark spin his car.

 
German GP Saturday Practice
 

For the WilliamsF1 team Friday practice would see Nico Rosberg crash in the first session of the day seeing him get in virtually no running on the day. Mark Webber would finish in seventh while Friday driver Alex Wurz would put in a considerable number of laps as the team worked through their setup and tyre options. Now it was Saturday practice and for Nico the session would be vital.

With the start of the session Monteiro was first out onto the track. He would be joined by the Super Aguri's of Yamamoto and Sato. The second MF1 of Albers would also take to the track after having to have an engine change. The first driver to set a time was Yamamoto with a 1m:27.120. Both of the MF1's would pit. Sato would set the quickest time with a 1m:22.630. Monteiro would return to the track, while Sato would lower his time with a 1m:20.767. His next lap would see him improve with a 1m:20.276 while Monteiro went second with a 1m:21.203. Albers was back out while Sato's time was now a 1m:20.201. Trulli would also take to the track with ten minutes of the session run. Monteiro had lowered his time with a 1m:20.442.

RosbergSato would pit as Monteiro went fastest with a 1m:20.038. Albers was now fastest with a 1m:19.726. Ralf Schumacher would join his Toyota team-mate out on the track. But Trulli would stop out on the track with a mechanical problem with smoke coming from his car. Barrichello left the pit lane. Albers had lowered his time with a 1m:19.254 but this was beaten by Ralf with a 1m:18.631. Speed and Villeneuve had come out. They were joined by Nico who would have to make up for lost time on Friday. Ralf would improve his time with a 1m:18.180. Now we had De la Rosa and Liuzzi come out for this installation laps. They were joined by Raikkonen. Ralf's time was now a 1m:18.070 while Rubens had moved into fifth, 1m:20.493.

Heidfeld and Klien were now on the track. Barrichello would move into second while Nico was now in third, 1m:19.165. De la Rosa was fifth, 1m:19.445. Speed would move ahead of Nico with a 1m:19.017. But on his next lap Nico would go fastest with a 1m:17.628. Heidfeld was now fifth while Coulthard left the pits. Now Mark would take to the track as Nico went fastest in the second sector. Liuzzi was now in fifth and Villeneuve sixth. De la Rosa and Raikkonen were in tenth and eleventh. Coulthard would jump up into fourth, 1m:18.153. Mark was in fifth with a 1m:18.203. Coulthard's next lap was a 1m:18.028 which would see him second. Nico had pitted.

Michael Schumacher and Button were now out on the track. Klien was now in sixth as team-mate Coulthard lowered his time with a 1m:17.917. Michael's first lap would see him in sixth. Mark had made it a WilliamsF1 one-two moving into second with a 1m:17.741. Massa had now come out leaving just the Renault's to make an appearance. Michael was now in second, 1m:17.631, pushing Mark into third. Mark had returned to his pit after having spun his car. Michael would go fastest with a 1m:17.466 while team-mate Massa would move into the top spot with a 1m:17.150.

Now both of the Renault's had left the pit lane while Button moved into sixth. Massa was on another quick lap finishing with a 1m:16.503. Alonso was now in eighth. and Fisichella fifteenth. Button's next lap would see him in fourth splitting the WilliamsF1 drivers. Massa would lower his time with a 1m:16.220. Alonso would improve to now be in sixth, 1m:17.783. Michael had pitted leaving only a handful of cars running with just over twenty five minutes remaining in the session. Alonso was now second while Massa had lowered his time by a few tenths, 1m:16.208. Ralf was now in third and Fisichella seventh. Nico was now in fifth and Mark eighth.

Fisichella was now in fifth while Massa improved his time again with a 1m:16.012. The order was now Massa followed by Alonso, Ralf, Fisichella, Michael, Nico, Button, mark, Barrichello, and Speed making up the top ten. But Rubens would improve to now be in third while Heidfeld, on new tyres, put in a very quick lap to move into the 1m:16 seconds with a 1m:16.167 to now be in second. Nico had come back out and his first lap would see him in third with a 1m:17.114. Mark had also returned to the track currently been in eleventh. Nico would improve with a 1m:17.006. Mark was able to improve with a 1m:17.347 to now be in sixth.

Raikkonen had also come out and was now in ninth. Team-mate de la Rosa was also out on the track but was down in twentieth. Nico would pit as Raikkonen moved into third, 1m:16.218. De la Rosa would also improve to now be fourth, 1m:16.322. Nico was in fifth and Mark eighth. Kimi would pit followed
by de la Rosa. With sixteen minutes left in the session Coulthard would put in a quick time to move into second, 1m:16.104. Mark would lower his time with a 1m:16.914 to now be in sixth one place ahead of Nico. Coulthard had lowered his time with a 1m:16.080.

Mark would pit while Speed moved into eighth. Alonso was down in ninth and Michael thirteenth, but it looked like both drivers were using older rubber. Liuzzi was now sixth with ten minutes left in the session. Massa had returned to the track while the majority of drivers were in their garages getting ready for their practice qualifying runs. There were just three drivers running. Nico would come back out with Mark and Nico in eighth and ninth. Only Massa, Nico, and Klien were on the track with seven minutes left. Nico had not improved his time as de la Rosa came out. The first of the practice qualifying runs would see Klien move into the top spot with a 1m:15.661. Massa would pit as Villeneuve came back out with under five minutes remaining.

Now there was a rush of drivers taking to the track including Mark. Klien had improved with a 1m:15.628 and he would pit. There were just five drivers not out on the track as the final minutes counted down. Nico and Mark were in ninth and tenth. The next to improve would be Button who was now in second, 1m:15.651. Fisichella improved to be in sixth. The second Honda of Barrichello was now in third. Both Nico and Mark were in the 1m:16 seconds but had now dropped to be thirteenth and fourteenth. Yamamoto was to crash his car while Michael improved to be in ninth. But had it not been for the yellow flags for Yamamoto's crash Michael would have gone fastest.

With the end of the session it would be Klien fastest from Button, Barrichello, Massa, Coulthard, Fisichella, Heidfeld, Raikkonen, Michael, de la Rosa, Alonso, Liuzzi, Speed, Nico, and Mark.

 
Pos  Driver        Team                     Time     Laps
 1.  Klien         Red Bull-Ferrari    (M)  1:15.628 14
 2.  Button        Honda               (M)  1:15.651 15
 3.  Barrichello   Honda               (M)  1:15.963 19
 4.  Massa         Ferrari             (B)  1:15.977 13
 5.  Coulthard     Red Bull-Ferrari    (M)  1:16.080 14
 6.  Fisichella    Renault             (M)  1:16.130 16
 7.  Heidfeld      BMW-Sauber          (M)  1:16.167 14
 8.  Raikkonen     McLaren-Mercedes    (M)  1:16.218 12
 9.  M.Schumacher  Ferrari             (B)  1:16.307 11
10.  de la Rosa    McLaren-Mercedes    (M)  1:16.322 12
11.  Alonso        Renault             (M)  1:16.427 15
12.  Liuzzi        Toro Rosso-Cosworth (M)  1:16.532 18
13.  Speed         Toro Rosso-Cosworth (M)  1:16.600 17
14.  Rosberg       WilliamsF1-Cosworth (B)  1:16.690 20
15.  Webber        WilliamsF1-Cosworth (B)  1:16.834 16
16.  R.Schumacher  Toyota              (B)  1:17.419 17
17.  Villeneuve    BMW-Sauber          (M)  1:17.740 16
18.  Monteiro      MF1-Toyota          (B)  1:17.793 23
19.  Yamamoto      Super Aguri-Honda   (B)  1:18.643 19
20.  Sato          Super Aguri-Honda   (B)  1:18.668 21
21.  Albers        MF1-Toyota          (B)  1:19.254 15
22.  Trulli        Toyota              (B)  No time  2  

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