German Grand Prix: First Free Practice Times
Friday’s practice session was nothing less of a surprise as the results had been completely unexpected, leaving behind all the technically much advanced cars and drivers that had been in great form all through the season. The Force India driver Adrian Sutil topped the practice session thus taking all by shock. The German racer was able to make the fastest lap of the day in only 1m 25.701s.
The most shocking incident of the day however was the bad blow that the McLaren driver and the current chart topper, Lewis Hamilton had at the fourth corner of the track. The Briton hit hard with the tyre wall of the track thus ripping off the front wing as well as damaging the left-rear suspension. However, the driver was lucky as he came out unhurt.
The first day of practice was made tough by the heavy rain that started the day, making the track wet and slippery which was the cause of Hamilton’s crash as well.
Well, the second fastest lap of the day was marked by Felipe Massa of Ferrari after showcasing a complete series of spins in addition to off-track adventures.
The day was saved for McLaren by the other Briton team driver, Jenson Button who ended the race of the day at third place overall having his fastest lap in 1m 26.936s.
Another surprise of the day was the fourth place finish of the Williams driver, Rubens Barrichello. The Brazilian covered his fastest lap in a time period of 1m 26.947s and was filled by the Renault driver Vitaly Petrov. Petrov who had been very optimistic for the race as he had just returned from his home land after a weekend racing event, took a total time of 1m 26.948s to make his fastest lap.
The Mercedes GP driver Nico Rosberg stood at sixth place on 1m 27.448s, chased by Sebastien Buemi in his Toro Rosso on 1m 28.114s.
Nico Hulkenberg had a good day as he was fast enough all through the morning and ended at eighth place on 1m 28.193s with Vitantonio Liuzzi, the Italian driver for Force India, following his tail in 1m 28.300s.
Pedro de la Rosa of BMW Sauber ended at tenth place whereas Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull stood at eleventh with best lap times of 1m 26.486s and 1m 28.735s respectively. Timo Glock brought forward the Virgin’s best race show of the season having ended at twelfth place in 1m 28.735s and Robert Kubica of Renault was one of many to slide off the road and finally recorded a best lap in 1m 28.903s.
Another unexpected finish of the day was Red Bull’s Mark Webber who ended at fourteenth place on 1m 29.048s with one of the fastest cars of the season followed by Jarno Trulli of Lotus on 1m 29.280s.
Jaime Alguersuari of Toro Rosso, the second team owned by Red Bull, ended on 1m 29.366s, while Hamilton, covered iy in 1m 29.429s before he had to quit owing to the crash.
At eighteenth place stood Lucas di Grassi of Virgin who had a lap time of 1m 29.500s followed by Fernando Alonso of Ferrari and Kamui Kobayashi of BMW Sauber with 1m 29.684s and 1m 29.690s respectively.
At the tail of the tally stood Fairuz Fauzy who covered his fastest lap in 1m 30.938s ending at twenty first place and Bruno Senna of HRT in 1m 31.720s who had to end twenty second after spinning at turn 11.
It was another bad day for Mercedes’ Michael Schumacher, as he ended in twenty third place in 1m 32.450s only standing before HRT’s Sakon Yamamoto on 1m 32.791s.
Altogether the results of the session had been odd, though the day was not a dull one. With these results not much could be said or predicted for the final race day. However, there is yet another pair of practice session as well as qualifying before the final race, so one can hope to see a lot more action here at Hockenheim.
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