Formula One: Alonso takes the lead in Practice Two at Hockenheim, Vettel of Red Bull to take second place
The Friday’s second practice took place in slightly better conditions at Hockenheim. Rain stopped by the afternoon though the track was still slippery and greasy. However, finally a pattern is now visible in a better way than what it seemed to be after the morning practice.
Fernando Alonso of Ferrari, who had also been the winner of the season started in Bahrain, was able to push to the fore with a lap time of just 1m 16.265s, whereas Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull followed his tail in his RB6 with 1m 16.294s. Interestingly the pattern of the teams was repeated for the third and the forth positions as well, Felipe Massa of Ferrari and Mark Webber of Red Bull touched with 1m 16.438s and 1m 16.585s, occupying the third and froth places successively.
Ultimately, things turned good for the Mercedes GP as well as for both the German racers, Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher who ended at fifth and sixth places with 1m 16.827s and 1m 16.971s respectively, a special treat for their home fans.
Lewis Hamilton, who hit the tyre wall in the morning session, was successful in packing up the seventh fastest lap in his McLaren, which was repaired around with another new ‘blown’ diffuser floor, and recorded a time of 1m 17.808s. Whereas, the teammate Jenson Button marked 1m 17.739s, in 31 laps and without any improvement ended at 15th slot overall.
Hamilton stood a few fractions ahead of Robert Kubica for Renault with his best in 1m 17.009s.
Williams’ was strong once again as Rubens Barrichello ended ninth ahead of team mate Nico Hulkenberg, another German racer, on 1m 17.056s and 1m 17.204s respectively.
Kamui Kobayashi stood at eleventh place marking his fastest in 1m 17.336s for BMW Sauber, though he could have done even better but Alonso got in the way of the Japanese as the former started to build up to a fast lap.
Vitaly Petrov of Renault was able to keep a lead over his teammate Kubica, for much of the time however was unlucky to end at 12th place on 1m 17.547s, one place ahead of Pedro de la Rosa who covered in 1m 17.573s in his BMW Sauber.
The 14th place was occupied by the topper of the morning session, Adrian Sutil who covered now in 1m 17.701s, whereas his teammate Vitantonio Liuzzi on 1m 17.871s ended at the sixteenth place, both sandwiching Button in between.
The two Toro Rosso men, Sebastian Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari comfortably ended at seventeenth and eighteenth place in 1m 18.147s and 1m 19.327s respectively.
In the rookie teams, Virgin was able to lead, owing to the good performance of Timo Glock, who landed at nineteenth place with 1m 19.553s leaving Jarno Trulli of Lotus following him for the twentieth place with 1m 20.008s, as his car stopped with some mechanical problem.
Lucas di Grassi ended at twenty first place on 1m 20.106s for Virgin followed by Heikki Kovalainen on twenty second position with 1m 20.377s, as the Finn got back his T127 from Fairuz Fauzy, who ran it in this morning practice session.
The day was ended by Bruno Senna setting at the back, in his HRT taking 1m 21.988s, along with Sakon Yamamoto, the Japanese racer who ended last on the track with 1m 23.066s in the second F110.
A few minor incidents also took place on the track, which was in a very bad condition during the early stages after the rain. Sutil, Liuzzi, Vettel, Schumacher and Barrichello each spun or ran wide, while Rosberg got a marker cone clipped right in the beginning at the Turn One and had the front wing of his Mercedes damaged.
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