Ferrari driver Alonso sets benchmark for Monaco Grand Prix on Thursday – Formula 1 news
Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso surprisingly scored the fastest time of a competitive second free practice session this Thursday for the Monaco Grand Prix after a disappointing home race this past week.
Alonso scored a 1:15.123 which was just around 1 tenth of a second faster than the second fastest driver of the session Lewis Hamilton. Surprisingly, neither of the Red Bull Racing Team drivers was able to finish in the top 3 of the timesheets as the reigning
world champion Sebastian Vettel scored the 5th fastest time of the session which was over 5 tenths off the pace of Fernando’s time.
Mark Webber on the other hand was over a second off the pace which proves that the RB7’s pace was not as affective as it has been in the first five races of the 2011 Formula 1 season this weekend.
McLaren on the other hand was looking quite strong with Jenson Button in 4th place in the timesheets over 2 tenths of a second faster than Vettel.
Mercedes GP driver Nico Rosberg has been performing pretty good up until now as well as he scored a double 3rd place in the timesheets of the Thursday free practice sessions. Mercedes is looking pretty strong this weekend as Michael Schumacher
also bounced back in the second session as he scored the 7th fastest time of the session after a crash in the first session.
Ferrari’s pace however, relies on Fernando Alonso only as Felipe Massa was nowhere near the Spaniard’s fastest time. Massa was more than 6 tenths of a second off the pace of the 2 time world champion’s pace which means that he is still not getting a hold
of the new Pirelli tyres.
Other than that, it was a pretty disappointing session for Lotus Renault GP since both of its drivers were nowhere near the pace of the top running teams with Nick Heidfeld in 9th place followed by Vitaly Petrov in 10th place according
to the timesheets.
The qualifying session of the Monaco Grand Prix is going to be quite interesting as it seems that this is the first time in the 2011 Formula 1 season that Red Bull might be beatable in qualifying.
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