F1: Romain Grosjean quickest again at Barcelona (+photos)Romain Grosjean, in the Lotus E20 set the fastest time for a second consecutive day during the last winter test session of Formula 1 held at Barcelona, Spain.
The track stayed open for business until 5.30 pm today, the extra half hour added at the end to make up for the fact that the start was delayed, when thick fog in the area meant the Safety Helicopter could not take off.
Third during most of this morning session, Grosjean was busy after lunch, completing a full 60-lap race simulation, running on Pirelli's soft and hard compounds. Late in the day, Grosjean did a series of fast laps, setting the benchmark time of 1m22.614 with just minutes remaining, on a set of soft tires.
Another Frenchman, Jean-Eric Vergne was second quickest in the Toro Rosso Ferrari. The small Italian team completed less laps than planned today, because an engine change was required after a failure towards the end of the morning session. Vergne worked on an aerodynamic evaluation programme, while in the final half hour, the team again carried out pit stop practice drills. Reigning World Champion Sebastian Vettel finished the day ion third place in the Red Bull Renault. He was followed by another two-time champion, Fernando Alonso in the Ferrari. The Spaniard worked on the set-up of the F2012 and on aerodynamics, while in the afternoon, he did a full Grand Prix simulation.
The big surprise came from Heikki Kovalainen who ranked a brilliant fifth in the Catherham Renault fitted on super soft tires. Kovalainen ran a very similar program to Petrov’s plan yesterday with tire evaluation this morning and long runs with high fuel in the afternoon. Kamui Kobayashi was sixth in the Sauber Ferrari. The Japanese worked on the car in race trim and compared aero components in the afternoon. The C31 developed an hydraulic leak in the afternoon.
Nico Hulkenberg was seventh in the Sahara Force India, followed by Michael Schumacher in the Mercedes AMG, Lewis Hamilton in the McLaren Mercedes and Bruno Senna in the Williams Renault. Team McLaren was apparently not surprised to see Hamilton down in 9th place. In the press release, the team explained that “the majority of the day was spent making lengthy adjustments to set-up in order to more fully understand the effects of change on the car. This meant the day was centred more around development, and less on headline-making lap times”. Formula 1 winter test 3, Barcelona, Day 2 times*: 1. Grosjean Lotus 1m22.614s 123 laps 2. Vergne Toro Rosso 1m23.126s 31 3. Vettel Red Bull 1m23.361s 85 4. Alonso Ferrari 1m23.447s 124 5. Kovalainen Caterham 1m23.828s 104 6. Kobayashi Sauber 1m23.836s 77 7. Hulkenberg Force India 1m23.893s 33 8. Schumacher Mercedes 1m23.978s 79 9. Hamilton McLaren 1m24.111s 65 10. Senna Williams 1m24.925s 48 11. Maldonado Williams 1m25.801s 20 *Unofficial timing
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