Singapore GP: Williams drops down the times in FP2


Pastor Maldonado

By Andrew Hooper
September 21 2012

The results of the second Friday practice session for the 2012 Singapore GP would see the Williams F1 team's drivers drop down the times with Pastor Maldonado only 13th and Bruno Senna 17th. Bruno had stopped out on the track after making contact with the wall.

 
 Singapore GP Friday 2nd Practice
 
Maldonado
 

The first of two Friday practice sessions would see Williams F1 drivers Pastor Maldonado and Bruno Senna finish in fifth and eleventh. Now it was the second session and Pastor would come out very early joined by Bruno and several other drivers including Pic, Hulkenberg, and Perez. More drivers would come out including both Torro Rosso's, and Di Resta. Both Caterham's would also come out with both Williams cars on the soft tyre. Pirelli had brought the soft and super soft tyres for this weekend. Both Red Bull cars were out on the track, joined by Button, Massa, Raikkonen, Schumacher, and Glock. No rain was expected during the session as Perez went fastest with a 1m:54.830. Pastor was second and Bruno third. Hulkenberg would move into second with a 1m:55.800 with Rosberg now fourth and Bruno fifth. Vergne would go fastest with a 1m:53.632 but both Di Resta and Ricciardo would go faster with Di Resta setting a 1m:51.414.

Pastor would improve to be second with a 1m:51.710. All twenty four cars were out on the track with Ricciardo now fourth, 1m:53.128. Vergne would move up to third with a 1m:52.371 with team-mate Ricciardo fourth, 1m:52.553. Grosjean was up to third, 1m:52.062. Bruno had dropped to seventeenth but was on a quicker lap. Button would go fastest with a 1m:50.837, from Di Resta with Webber now third. Pastor was now fourth with Bruno now up to eighth with a lap time of 1m:52.384. Perez had pitted and was now thirteenth. Webber would improve with a 1m:51.345 and now
second. Button would pit as Raikkonen moved into seventh. This would become eighth when Schumacher moved up to third with a time of 1m:51.356. Alonso was now fourth with a 1m:51.365 as Pastor went fastest in the final two sectors to move into second with a 1m:50.872. Bruno had pitted and was now eleventh, 1m:52.384.

Rosberg was now third with a 1m:51.190 while the second Ferrari of Massa was twelfth, 1m:52.338. Hamilton would go quickest with a 1m:50.561 to be ahead of Button by 0.276. Pastor had also now pitted as Webber improved with a 1m:50.893 still fourth. Alonso was fifth as large numbers of drivers pitted after their first runs. Vettel would complain about having no front end under braking. Vettel was currently sixteenth but he did not stay there for long going fastest with a 1m:50.497. Hamilton would start another quick lap going fastest in the first sector. The Williams team would get their cars ready to return running on the super soft tyre. There were now only a few cars on the track including Hamilton, Di Resta, Massa, and Perez. Bruno would come back out with just under an hour and ten minutes remaining.

Pastor would also come back out as Hamilton went fastest with a 1m:50.074. The track was getting busier as Hamilton pitted while Vergne also on the super soft tyre would improve to be twelfth, 1m:52.009. Bruno was currently sixteenth but his lap would see him bounce across the kerbs ruining his lap. Pastor was still on the soft tyre while at the front Alonso was on an improved lap moving up to third with a 1m:50.734. Button was now fourth and Pastor fifth. Bruno's next lap would see him set a 1m:51.452 to be tenth. Hs super soft tyres had given him an improvement of 0.9. Kobayashi would also improve to move into tenth, 1m:51.450, using the super soft tyre. Both Hamilton and Vettel were back in their pits.

Bruno was on a quicker lap but he would hit the wall going through the second last corner. Trying to go through the next corner he would spin the car stopping in the middle of the track at Turn twenty one. He would tell his engineer that he had lost drive and would get out of his car walking away. His car would be pushed away but it could not be moved away from the traffic. As a result of this the session would be red flagged. The track would empty with fifty minutes remaining. The session would be restarted with Petrov first out. He would be joined by Vettel and Rosberg. Massa would also come out joined by Hamilton with Hamilton on the super soft tyres. Vettel would continue to run on the soft tyre. Massa was on a quick lap while Pastor would come back out. Massa would finish with a 1m:50.039 to be fastest running on the super soft tyre.

Hamilton would go fastest in sector one and two ending his lap with a 1m:49.086. Vettel had improved but remained third. Hamilton was 0.953 faster than Massa. This was with a small mistake by Hamilton at the last corner running wide. Webber was on the super soft tyre as was Ricciardo. Webber would go fastest with a 1m:48.964. Raikkonen would improve to be fourth, 1m:50.345. Pastor had dropped to be ninth but he was also on a quicker lap. Schumacher on the super soft tyre would go fourth fastest with a 1m:50.263. Pastor would improve to be seventh with a time of 1m:50.636. Alonso was now eighth from Ricciardo and Button. Hulkenberg was now seventh with a 1m:50.586 running on the option tyre. Hamilton had pitted while Di Resta set a 1m:49.300 to be third. Alonso was on a quicker lap with Bruno now down in sixteenth. Alonso would complete his lap setting a 1m:48.896 to be fastest.

Button would go fastest in sector one as Webber pitted. Grosjean was now sixth with a time of 1m:50.161. Hulkenberg would also improve to be sixth with a 1m:49.339. Button would jump to the top of the times with a 1m:48.651 to be ahead of Alonso by 0.245. Di Resta had pitted with Pastor also coming in, currently in twelfth. Most cars were in the pit lane with thirty minutes remaining. Rosberg would set a 1m:49.790 to be seventh. Vettel was also out on the track and would set a 1m:48.340 to be fastest by 0.311 over Button. Vettel would pit as Hamilton came back out. Di Resta also came back out followed by Webber. Pastor was back out currently in thirteenth. Drivers were on high fuel runs with the track now busy again with twenty minutes remaining. Raikkonen was the quickest on the high fuel runs.

We only had Grosjean, Ricciardo, Kobayashi, and De la Rosa in their pits. Alonso would pit briefly as Grosjean also came out. Several teams were doing back-to-back tyre comparisons with one driver on soft's and the other super soft's. Pastor was also on a longer run as Webber pitted. Both Grosjean and Rosberg would fly over the kerbs at the Turn ten chicane. Perez would nearly go into the barrier at Turn four but he was able to stop the car and reverse it back. Schumacher and Kovalainen would pit with just under eight minutes remaining. With five minutes remaining Webber would come back out after the Red Bull team made adjustments to his suspension. Raikkonen had pitted earlier and with a few minutes remaining Vettel would pit. Vettel's stop would be brief and would come back out as the session drew to a close. With the end of the session it would be Vettel fastest from Button, Alonso, Webber, Hamilton, Di Resta, Hulkenberg, Rosberg, Massa, and Grosjean in tenth.

For the Williams team Pastor and Bruno would finish in thirteenth and seventeenth. Bruno would say that it was a shame that his car hit the wall but that it would be right for Saturday. The team would have a lot of work to do as they try to sort out their setup. Losing Bruno for most of the session certainly did not help the teams setup work.

 
Senna
 
Pos  Driver         	 Team		       Time      Laps
 1.  Sebastian Vettel    Red Bull-Renault      1m48.340  27
 2.  Jenson Button       McLaren-Mercedes      1m48.651s 24
 3.  Fernando Alonso     Ferrari               1m48.896s 26
 4.  Mark Webber         Red Bull-Renault      1m48.964s 26
 5.  Lewis Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes      1m49.086s 28
 6.  Paul di Resta       Force India-Mercedes  1m49.300s 30
 7.  Nico Hulkenberg     Force India-Mercedes  1m49.339s 31
 8.  Nico Rosberg        Mercedes              1m49.790s 32
 9.  Felipe Massa        Ferrari               1m50.039s 28
10.  Romain Grosjean     Lotus-Renault         1m50.161s 23
11.  Michael Schumacher  Mercedes              1m50.263s 23
12.  Kimi Raikkonen      Lotus-Renault         1m50.345s 24
13.  Pastor Maldonado    Williams-Renault      1m50.636s 32
14.  Daniel Ricciardo    Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m50.791s 26
15.  Sergio Perez        Sauber-Ferrari        1m51.122s 28
16.  Kamui Kobayashi     Sauber-Ferrari        1m51.450s 21
17.  Bruno Senna         Williams-Renault      1m51.452s 11
18.  Jean-Eric Vergne    Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m52.00$s 31
19.  Timo Glock          Marussia-Cosworth     1m52.218s 29
20.  Heikki Kovalainen   Caterham-Renault      1m52.576s 27
21.  Charles Pic         Marussia-Cosworth     1m52.863s 27
22.  Vitaly Petrov       Caterham-Renault      1m52.936s 25
23.  Pedro de la Rosa    HRT-Cosworth          1m54.448s 25
24.  Narain Karthikeyan  HRT-Cosworth          1m54.514s 30
 

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Singapore GP: Williams drops down the times in FP2
Discussion started by Williams F1 , 21/09/2012 16:26
Williams F1
21/09/2012 16:26
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