Rosberg leads Webber after final Italian practice


Nico Rosberg

By Andrew Hooper
September 9 2006

For the WilliamsF1 team the final Italian practice would see Nico Rosberg leading Mark Webber in the times. Nico was in thirteenth and Mark sixteenth. Both driver would complete only eight laps in the session, possibly indicating a concern over their Cosworth engines.

 
Italian GP Saturday Practice
 

The final practice session for the 2006 Italian Grand Prix would see half of the session completed before the WilliamsF1 would send ofut their drivers, Mark Webber and Nico Rosberg. Nico would be the first to take to the circuit and he would set a time that would see him move into sixth fastest, 1m:23.756. Mark had yet to come out and it would not be until twenty minutes left in the session before Mark would leave the pit lane.

RosbergAfter several laps Mark would see his times improve to be eleventh, 1m:24.253. But as the session progressed Nico would op down the times to be in eleventh and Mark fourteenth. The final minutes would see Nico back out on the track but Mark remained in his pit. Finally Mark would come out for his final run. Nico was in seventh with a time of 1m:23.334, but this was a massive 1.44 seconds behind the fastest time of Massa, 1m:21.891.Mark had now dropped to be sixteenth and Nico was now in eighth and had returned to his pit, ending his session. With under a minute remaining Nico was now twelfth and Mark fifteenth. With the end of the session Nico and Mark would be in thirteenth and sixteenth positions with times of 1m:23.334 and 1m:23.599.

The top ten would be made up of Massa followed by Heidfeld, Michael Schumacher, Kubica, Alonso, Fisichella, Raikkonen, Barrichello, de la Rosa, and Klien. For the WilliamsF1 team the promise expressed on Friday failed to eventuate with both drivers looking to have a difficult qualifying. One thing of note was the fact that both WilliamsF1 drivers significantly limited the number of laps that they ran during the session, failing to get into double figures. Does this indicate that the team has concerns of their Cosworth engines?

 
Pos  Driver        Team                     Time     Laps
 1.  Massa         Ferrari             (B)  1:21.665 12
 2.  Heidfeld      BMW-Sauber          (M)  1:22.052 13
 3.  M.Schumacher  Ferrari             (B)  1:22.257 14
 4.  Kubica        BMW-Sauber          (M)  1:22.280 12
 5.  Alonso        Renault             (M)  1:22.371 15
 6.  Fisichella    Renault             (M)  1:22.412 15
 7.  Raikkonen     McLaren-Mercedes    (M)  1:22.682 11
 8.  Barrichello   Honda               (M)  1:22.835 18
 9.  de la Rosa    McLaren-Mercedes    (M)  1:22.915 11
10.  Klien         Red Bull-Ferrari    (M)  1:23.081 11
11.  R.Schumacher  Toyota              (B)  1:23.244 17
12.  Button        Honda               (M)  1:23.295 15
13.  Rosberg       WilliamsF1-Cosworth (B)  1:23.334 8
14.  Trulli        Toyota              (B)  1:23.467 15
15.  Coulthard     Red Bull-Ferrari    (M)  1:23.536 9
16.  Webber        WilliamsF1-Cosworth (B)  1:23.599 8
17.  Speed         Toro Rosso-Cosworth (M)  1:23.659 20
18.  Liuzzi        Toro Rosso-Cosworth (M)  1:23.777 20
19.  Albers        MF1-Toyota          (B)  1:24.186 17
20.  Monteiro      MF1-Toyota          (B)  1:24.541 14
21.  Sato          Super Aguri-Honda   (B)  1:24.549 25
22.  Yamamoto      Super Aguri-Honda   (B)  1:24.717 19

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