Canadian GP: Alonso tops Vettel in practice 2
06/10/11 Fernando Alonso set the pace for Ferrari in the second practice session for the Canadian Grand Prix on Friday in Montreal.
The Spanish driver turned a best lap of 1m15.107s, beating Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel by nearly four tenths of a second.
Felipe Massa finished third for Ferrari ahead of the McLarens of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button.
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has acknowledged that the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve will provide his team with its sternest challenge thus far this year.
"This is one of our two weakest circuits," Horner said, "so the target is to challenge McLaren and Ferrari and fight for a place on the podium. The weather could be a factor as well but there seems to be a lesser chance of rain now."
In recent seasons the Mercedes-powered Force India has performed well on medium/low downforce circuits and Paul Di Resta (1:16.089) continued the hugely impressive start to his F1 career with sixth fastest time of the second session. Team mate Adrian Sutil, by contrast, finished his session early when he ran wide at the exit of Turn 7 and put the sister car into the wall.
Mark Webber (1:16.102) wound up seventh fastest in the second Red Bull, while the Renaults of Vitaly Petrov (1:16.324) and Nick Heidfeld (1:16.422) and Rubens Barrichello's Williams completed the top 10.
There were three accidents during the session. The first belonged to Adrian Sutil, who put his car into the wall exiting Turn 7. Moments later, Kamui Kobayashi brought out the red flags when he hit the at Turn 4.
The session was stopped for nine minutes while moments after the restart Jerome D'Ambrosio went off at the same spot as Kobayashi. His shunt also brought out the red flags.
The final ten minutes of the session saw Pedro de la Rosa put in his first laps in the Sauber C30. The McLaren tester will race for Sauber this weekend after Sergio Perez revealed he was not feeling 100 percent after Practice One.
Quotes
Sebastian Vettel
“I had an incident this morning. I lost the rear, but by the time I hit the wall I had low speed, so the crash was quite mild. There wasn’t much damage, so we could fix the car and get back out this afternoon. McLaren and Ferrari look strong here, although I haven’t seen all the times from practice yet. For us, I’m happy with the car’s balance and how it performs, so we will see. It’s a special circuit here, it’s quite rough with the curbs and chicanes, but I like it. The target is to win, but it’s a long weekend and a lot of things can happen. It’s important to finish and do your best, whatever that is."
Nico Rosberg
"It was a positive start to the weekend, and we seem to have made some progress with our race pace. I felt comfortable with the car today and we completed a lot of laps despite the interruptions, which was good. The tires are holding up well so it will be interesting to see the comparison once we start working on low fuel tomorrow. Overall, I'm quite happy."
Michael Schumacher
"We covered quite a lot of work today. Obviously we didn't do any times on lower fuel and just concentrated on high fuel due to the red flags shortening our program this afternoon. That's why we are at the opposite end of the timesheets to this morning, when it looked encouraging for a weekend that we did not enter with the highest expectations. We will now sit and analyze our performance and hope for another encouraging day tomorrow."
Results
|
Pos |
Driver | Team | Time | Behind | Laps |
| 1. | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | 1m15.107s | +0.000s | 34 |
| 2. | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull-Renault | 1m15.476s | +0.369s | 29 |
| 3. | Felipe Massa | Ferrari | 1m15.601s | +0.494s | 33 |
| 4. | Lewis Hamilton | McLaren-Mercedes | 1m15.977s | +0.870s | 26 |
| 5. | Jenson Button | McLaren-Mercedes | 1m15.989s | +0.882s | 25 |
| 6. | Paul di Resta | Force India-Mercedes | 1m16.089s | +0.982s | 34 |
| 7. | Mark Webber | Red Bull-Renault | 1m16.102s | +0.995s | 28 |
| 8. | Vitaly Petrov | Renault | 1m16.324s | +1.217s | 32 |
| 9. | Nick Heidfeld | Renault | 1m16.422s | +1.315s | 32 |
| 10. | Rubens Barrichello | Williams-Cosworth | 1m16.687s | +1.580s | 28 |
| 11. | Adrian Sutil | Force India-Mercedes | 1m16.905s | +1.798s | 16 |
| 12. | Pastor Maldonado | Williams-Cosworth | 1m16.941s | +1.834s | 39 |
| 13. | Sebastien Buemi | Toro Rosso-Ferrari | 1m17.051s | +1.944s | 32 |
| 14. | Jaime Alguersuari | Toro Rosso-Ferrari | 1m17.684s | +2.577s | 34 |
| 15. | Kamui Kobayashi | Sauber-Ferrari | 1m17.757s | +2.650s | 20 |
| 16. | Jarno Trulli | Lotus-Renault | 1m18.470s | +3.363s | 33 |
| 17. | Heikki Kovalainen | Lotus-Renault | 1m18.482s | +3.375s | 38 |
| 18. | Pedro de la Rosa | Sauber-Ferrari | 1m18.536s | +3.429s | 14 |
| 19. | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 1m18.601s | +3.494s | 38 |
| 20. | Michael Schumacher | Mercedes | 1m19.209s | +4.102s | 28 |
| 21. | Timo Glock | Virgin-Cosworth | 1m19.810s | +4.703s | 25 |
| 22. | Tonio Liuzzi | HRT-Cosworth | 1m20.284s | +5.177s | 31 |
| 23. | Narain Karthikeyan | HRT-Cosworth | 1m20.311s | +5.204s | 38 |
| 24. | Jerome D'Ambrosio | Virgin-Cosworth | 1m20.922s | +5.815s | 26 |
TEAM QUOTES
Red Bull-Renault
Sebastian Vettel (2nd, 1:15.476): "I had an incident this morning. I lost the rear, but by the time I hit the wall I had low speed, so the crash was quite mild. There wasn't much damage, so we could fix the car and get back out this afternoon. McLaren and Ferrari look strong here, although I haven't seen all the times from practice yet. For us, I'm happy with the car's balance and how it performs, so we will see. It's a special circuit here, it's quite rough with the curbs and chicanes, but I like it. The target is to win, but it's a long weekend and a lot of things can happen. It's important to finish and do your best, whatever that is."
Mark Webber (7th, 1:16.102): "We were a bit compromised with the red flags at the end of P2, so we could have had a smoother end to the final session, but it wasn't too bad. We tried different fuel loads today and now we just need to chip away and get the car a bit quicker. It's a tricky venue here and we might have some different weather conditions thrown into the mix over the next 24 hours."
McLaren-Mercedes
Lewis Hamilton (4th, 1:15.977): "It was a very good session and a positive day for me. In P2, I think some debris from one of the incidents must have caused my puncture because I'd only just left the pits when I suddenly felt the rear sliding about. Nevertheless, we got through a lot of test components. I'm still trying to find the exact balance I need, and I'm not quite sure which direction I want to follow with my car, so I'll sit down with my engineers to analyze the data this evening. Our long-run pace is pretty good; the speed is there. It looks very close once again between Red Bull, Ferrari and ourselves, so we'll work on qualifying, get the car nicely dialed in and then I'll keep my fingers crossed. It's surprising to see so many incidents here, but it's such a demanding and slippery circuit that I guess some people just got caught out today. We're all testing the limits of our cars and you can't blame people for trying. There's no room for mistakes around a place like this and, unfortunately, some people paid the price today – but they'll bounce back tomorrow."
Jenson Button (5th, 1:15.989): "It's very difficult to make effective set-up changes when there are so many red flag stoppages. It's a very tough circuit here – one hit of a curb in the wrong way can send you into the wall. But we did some high-fuel runs on the Option tire; it was key to get some laps on the Supersoft. It's all useful information and I'm confident we can still improve the car's balance on low-fuel. We didn't do any low-fuel running on the Supersoft because of the two red flags, so we just filled the car up and sent it out at the end of the afternoon. It's pleasing that the car felt pretty good on high-fuel. The Red Bulls are quick, so are the Ferraris, the Mercedes and ourselves – I think it'll be a little bit closer than it's been in the past few races."
Martin Whitmarsh, Team Principal: "Today's sessions showed how unforgiving this circuit can be: you only need to get the car slightly off-line, or hit a curb at the wrong angle, and you can end up in the wall. Happily, all the drivers emerged unscathed, and the marshals did a fantastically efficient job of clearing the track and sweeping away all the debris. Despite the unusual number of stoppages, we still managed to make some positive progress, evaluating a number of minor modifications we'd introduced for this race and carrying out our tire comparison program – albeit with some disruption owing to the red flags. Both Lewis and Jenson are pretty happy with the balance of their cars, although there's still some work to be done to improve the set-up. As usual, the competition looks evenly matched – particularly so this weekend – but the unpredictability of the weather and the unforgiving nature of this circuit all look set to make for another close race."
Ferrari
Fernando Alonso (1st, 1:15.107):
Felipe Massa (3rd, 1:15.601):
Stefano Domenicali, Team Principal:
Pat Fry:
Mercedes GP
Nico Rosberg (19th, 1:18.601): "It was a positive start to the weekend, and we seem to have made some progress with our race pace. I felt comfortable with the car today and we completed a lot of laps despite the interruptions, which was good. The tires are holding up well so it will be interesting to see the comparison once we start working on low fuel tomorrow. Overall, I'm quite happy."
Michael Schumacher (20th, 1:19.209): "We covered quite a lot of work today. Obviously we didn't do any times on lower fuel and just concentrated on high fuel due to the red flags shortening our program this afternoon. That's why we are at the opposite end of the timesheets to this morning, when it looked encouraging for a weekend that we did not enter with the highest expectations. We will now sit and analyze our performance and hope for another encouraging day tomorrow."
Ross Brawn, Team Principal: "We've had a good day to start our Canadian Grand Prix weekend. Today's running was obviously interrupted with the various incidents, however we have focused very much on our race preparation, particularly this afternoon. The loss of track time meant that we did not complete any low fuel running, but from our long run work, the car looks reasonable."
Norbert Haug, Mercedes Motorsport Director: "A good and productive first day for us here on the Ile de Notre Dame at this great track. In the afternoon we concentrated on race simulations with both types of tires: Nico's times looked consistent in both cases, but for Michael there is still some more set-up work to be done. Nico's time this morning was comparable to the best times from the afternoon when the track in Montreal has more grip and is therefore usually quicker. Today was certainly one of our better Fridays. The weather forecast for tomorrow currently predicts a 75% chance of rain at 1300 when qualifying starts, and it is possible that this will be the first wet running of the weekend, because P3 should still be dry. Qualifying could therefore be even more interesting and challenging than usual; hopefully we can repeat our good form from today."
Renault
Vitaly Petrov (8th, 1:16.324): "It was frustrating not to get many laps during the first practice session; to start with, my car radio needed to be rectified, then the throttle pedal had to be replaced. With the red flag out there, my time was even more limited. However, I managed to get some good laps in the second session and found the supersoft tires had a little more grip. I was pleased with P2 because we achieved all that we were planning to achieve. We found a good balance with the car and did some long distance runs, so all in all I think it was a satisfying day's work. One thing we should consider is that the track will evolve over the weekend, so things can change over the next day or two."
Nick Heidfeld (9th, 1:16.422): "A busy Friday, but with no drama from our side. We've been able to assess both types of compounds and there were no surprises on that front, although we still need to improve the balance of the car with the softer compound. Also, the new rear wing and DRS system seemed to be performing well. The only bad news is that I've been unable to make any long run this afternoon because of the red flags. Although it has improved since this morning, the track remains slippery, and a few of people have been caught out by these tricky conditions. Finally, the next two days should be cooler; we are also expecting some rain, so we'll have to remain really flexible during the weekend. It's been good to see many fans in the grandstands on a Friday – it almost felt like a race day."
Alan Permane, Chief Race Engineer: "Montreal is a track that can be heavy on the brakes so today saw a large part of the first session devoted to examining this. This included driving on high fuel, with some long runs. Pirelli's soft and supersoft tire compounds were run effectively, with no major issues reported in P1 or P2. We used flow-viz paint this morning in order to assess our new rear wing. Vitaly lost some track time in the morning but it did not affect his weekend preparations, as he was able to complete a lot of laps in P2."
Williams-Cosworth
Rubens Barrichello (10th, 1:16.687): "The team worked well today. We had a lot of things to get through so we had to split our test program between mine and Pastor's car. Everyone did a good job to get it all done and we now have a lot of information to work through which I'm happy about. We seem to be in better shape here and that might give us a couple of positions over the weekend. We will still have to work hard to make it into Q3 tomorrow, but I think it is achievable."
Pastor Maldonado (12th, 1:16.941): "That was a positive day, although we did have some problems on my car in the morning which meant we didn't get to run the prime tires, only the medium. We had a better afternoon and our pace appears strong, even over long runs. All seems to be working ok so let's see what we can do in qualifying."
Sam Michael, Technical Director: "Even with the red flags, we had a really productive day with both cars. We evaluated front wings, rear wings and diffusers throughout both sessions and happily all of the new parts are working well. The tires improved a lot over the course of the day and that will continue into the race weekend. We will now turn our attention to qualifying."
Force India-Mercedes
Paul di Resta (6th, 1:16.089):
Adrian Sutil (11th, 1:16.905):
Dr. Vijay Mallya, Team Principal:
Dominic Harlow, Chief Race Engineer:
Otmar Szafnauer, Chief Operating Officer:
Sauber-Ferrari
Kamui Kobayashi (15th, 1:17.757):
Pedro de la Rosa (18th, 1:18.536):
Peter Sauber, Team Principal:
James Key, Technical Director:
Toro Rosso-Ferrari
Sebastien Buemi (13th, 1:17.051): "Good to be back in the car, because having had Spain and Monaco one after the oter, it has seemed like a long wait to go racing again. I didn't run this morning, which is fine, but it makes the afternoon more important. It went well and we have a good scan of what the tires are doing, including the prototype Medium which we tested here for Valencia in two weeks time. I did many laps which is positive, given that it was a tricky session with some cars going off track. We ran low downforce wings of course for this circuit and we have a good understanding of how they are working. It's very nice to drive the car in low downforce configuration, with a very high top speed which is exciting. This track is always demanding for the brakes and so we pushed really hard on them today and now we must look at the data to see if we have made the correct cooling calculations."
Jaime Alguersuari (14th, 1:17.694): "I feel I have made a step forward here in terms of my understanding of the car, because I suffered a bit in recent races, so that is a positive aspect of the day. I am still struggling a bit to get the tires to work properly over a single flying lap so we must work on that, although it might be difficult to do that tomorrow morning as I hear rain is forecast. On the other hand, I was very impressed with our long run race simulation, because the car seemed to perform much more consistently than in the past. For example, degradation on the rear tires does not appear to be much of an issue. As for the brakes, I had a better feel for them here than in Monaco, so I think overall we are making good progress."'
Daniel Ricciardo: "I attended the race last year but this is the first time I have been on track here. It's awesome and walking the track, or driving it on the simulator does not give you a real impression of how good it is. It's really more than I expected. I love being able to get out on track and really attack it and use the curbs. Getting close to the walls gives the driver the impression of really owning the car and manhandling it which is good fun. So, a very enjoyable session. I ran a slightly different program to the other races this year. I went out and did a couple of runs as a base line as usual and then I did a longer run at the end, although we had to change the plan a bit because of the red flag. Actually, this was the most laps I have ever driven consecutively in a Formula 1 car, doing 19 laps. It was good fun experiencing the Toro Rosso in more of a race trim for the first time. I learned a bit about the tire behavior even though the track was very dirty for the first two runs. Apart from the Prime, I was also able to try the Pirelli Medium which we have been given to test for Valencia. It was only for a short run and the level of grip they gave seemed quite nice and I am sure they will be good to race on in Valencia."
Lotus-Renault
Jarno Trulli (16th, 1:18.470): "That was a good Friday for us. We ran well all day with no problems, got through the tire evaluation program and put good mileage on both the compounds. The grip level this morning was as dusty as we expected it to be and then it improved throughout the day, but with wet weather coming I think it will be harder work for everyone over the rest of the weekend."
Heikki Kovalainen (17th, 1:18.482): "Overall I'm pretty satisfied but it was a bit of a strange day. In the early runs this morning it felt like one of the hardest Fridays I've had this year in terms of the balance and overall performance of the car, but as we kept putting more laps in we made some good improvements with the brakes and the setup and I think we pretty much got what we wanted out of it by the end of P2."
Tony Fernandes, Team Principal: "Today's performance in both sessions is a good way to mark my first visit to Canada. We have obviously made good strides on the reliability of the cars and that sets us up well for the whole weekend which is key to our development on track, so I am very pleased with how today has gone. Off track we have also had a very good lead up to the Canadian race by completing a number of very exciting deals for both Team Lotus and AirAsia. We will unveil everything we have been working on in due course and when we do I am confident that it will serve as proof positive of how successfully we are growing both the F1 team and the airline."
Mike Gascoyne, Technical Director: "A very useful day for the team and good preparation for the weekend ahead. Both drivers completed their full programs and we ran all day with no mechanical issues on either car. This morning we ran on the development tires and both the primes and the options in the afternoon and were pleased with how well all the compounds behaved. We have definitely made some progress on the setup, particularly on Heikki's car, so that goes down as a good day."
Thierry Salvi, Renault: "Another good Friday for us. We generated a lot of data from the mileage we ran, particularly on maximizing performance on the very long straight here, and both drivers have given us good feedback about the maps we worked on so we have definitely achieved what we set out to today."
HRT-Cosworth
Vitantonio Liuzzi (22nd, 1:20.284):
Narain Karthikeyan (23rd, 1:20.311):
Colin Kolles, Team Principal:
Virgin-Cosworth
Timo Glock (21st, 1:19.810):
Jerome d'Ambrosio (24th, 1:20.922):
John Booth, Team Principal: