Practice 2 for the 2015 Japanese Grand Prix has finished and once again we saw limited running as rain affected most of the session. Daniil Kvyat drove his Red Bull to the top of the time sheets and bettered the efforts of both Mercedes who followed closely in 2nd and 3rd.
 |
| Championship leader Lewis Hamilton. |
The session started off with intermediate conditions and they looked to be improving to perhaps even have slick running. However that wasn't the case as with about 30 minutes to go in the session the rain picked up and we saw full wet conditions. This affected Fernando Alonso as the McLaren missed the inters running due to an unscheduled engine change which saw him miss the first hour of the session. He finished 18th with a time on the full wets.
 |
| McLaren's Fernando Alonso had a very disrupted session with an engine change. |
Daniil Kvyat was the star of the session as he managed to finish ahead of two Mercedes that look back to normal. Even with many drivers struggling, there were little mistakes from the Mercedes team which makes Kvyat's lap more outstanding. Many people were struggling in the changeable conditions. Early on Sergio Perez was complaining of a lot of understeer and he couldn't match the initial pace of Kvyat. 18 minutes into the session Pastor Maldonado ran across the grass on the exit of Turn 2. It was a lazy mistake and it looks as though he was too busy adjusting settings on the wheel. Minutes later Sebastian Vettel ran wide at Turn 1 and came inches to beaching himself in the gravel trap. Then 41 minutes into the session Max Verstappen took a trip through the gravel at the hairpin (Turn 11) after he locked up going into the slowest corner on the Suzuka track.
Then running was really disrupted as the rain began to come down, and for a period of 10 minutes Fernando Alonso had the track to himself as he got in some valuable wet weather running. Towards the end of the session both Mercedes and Ferrari's joined him on the track as they practiced starts at the end of the pit lane.
 |
| Ferrari front wings. |
Once again though most of these times are highly irrelevant as wet weather times can't reflect race pace in dry conditions on Sunday. This means that the most important session now becomes Saturday Practice 3 as teams will have a choice to check long run pace or simulate qualifying. The teams will probably opt for the long run pace to see if the option tire can run long enough too run the two stop strategy.
This is how the running finished:
1) Daniil Kvyat - Red Bull Racing-Renault
2) Nico Rosberg - Mercedes
3) Lewis Hamilton - Mercedes
4) Daniel Ricciardo - Red Bull Racing-Renault
5) Sebastian Vettel - Ferrari
6) Kimi Raikkonen - Ferrari
7) Carlos Sainz - Toro Rosso-Renault
8) Max Verstappen - Toro Rosso-Renault
9) Felipe Nasr - Sauber-Ferrari
10) Pastor Maldonado - Lotus-Mercedes
11) Nico Hulkenberg - Force India-Mercedes
12) Jenson Button - McLaren-Honda
13) Marcus Ericsson - Sauber-Ferrari
14) Sergio Perez - Force India-Mercedes
15) Romain Grosjean - Lotus-Mercedes
16) Felipe Massa - Williams-Mercedes
17) Fernando Alonso - McLaren-Honda
18) Will Stevens - Manor-Ferrari
19) Alexander Rossi - Manor-Ferrari
Valtteri Bottas (Williams-Mercedes) did not set a laptime.
As I said earlier these times are relatively irrelevant as the wet running cannot dictate the pace of the cars in the dry. Free Practice 3 will definitely be a session to watch! Catch it tomorrow!
Follow us on Google+
https://plus.google.com/communities/100478860347030302038
All images courtesy of
Formula1.com
No comments:
Post a Comment