German GP 2012

JULY 20, 2012

Practice 2 Report - Maldonado tops mixed weather session

Pastor Maldonado. German GP 2012
© The Cahier Archive

With weather coditions disrupting another F1 practice session in Hockenheim, teams will head into Saturday with little in the way of concrete confirmation about the effectiveness of the myriad updates brought to the German GP.

In a session that started wet, almost dried out and then became wetter once more, it all depended when you were on-circuit. For the record only, Pastor Maldonado's Williams (1:27.476) topped the times from Nico Rosberg's Mercedes (1:27.564).

World champion Sebastian Vettel (1:27.902) was the only other driver to lap under 1m28s, exactly half a second quicker than Sergio Perez's Sauber (1:28.402).

Romain Grosjean (1:28.420), who will start Sunday's race witha five place grid penalty for a gearbox change, was fifth quickest, from Nico Hulkenberg's Force India (1:28.495) and Daniel Ricciardo (1:28.513).

The young Australian beached his Toro Rosso into the gravel at Turn 13 towards the end of the session, while a man at the other end of the experience scale, one Michael Schumacher, lost his Mercedes on the entry to the Stadium section, came back across the road and suffered a sizeable impact. Schumacher was fine but the session was red-flagged with four minutes remaining.

The top 10 was completed by Jenson Button (1:28.516), Mark Webber (1:28.877) and Kimi Raikkonen (1:29.327).

Neither Lewis Hamilton nor Fernando Alonso were circulating when conditions were at their best and finished the session in 19th and 20th slots respectively.