While the Mercedes duo of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg were quickest in Free Practice 1, Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber rose to the challenge and topped the time charts in Free Practice 2 of the F1 Japanese Grand Prix. Vettel turned a lap time of 1:33.852 and beat Webber's time of 1:34.020 to jump into 1st place.
Pastor Maldonado was the first to come out of the pit lane and put in a lap while team Williams was still investigating why his left rear wheel came off during FP1. Bianchi had to settle down and watch from the pits his Marussia suffered chassis damage from FP1.
It was Vettel though, who topped the time charts and flew past the rest of the competitors in his very first lap (1:34.746). But it didn’t take long for the Mercedes drivers to beat his time. Nico Rosberg went past Vettel’s set time to move into 1st place while Hamilton cruised into second.
The Red Bull driver was in no mood to give up and posted a time of 1:34.487 to snatch the top spot. Meanwhile, fellow teammate Mark Webber was getting into a nice rhythm as he went 3rd fastest (1:34.693)
But as in FP1 there were a few incidents. Sergio Perez slid wide and crashed his McLaren backwards into the barriers at Turn 13. The car then flicked and slammed sideways into the tire-walls. He radioed in that he was okay.
The rest of the cars took to the pits after this incident but when action resumed Hulkenberg slid off the track. Fernando Alonso too clipped a curb and spun at Turn 9.
All drivers now switched onto medium compound tyres and Webber took advantage of the grip. He went past fellow teammate Vettel and topped the times with a 1:34.020 while Rosberg came in a close second with 1:34.114.
Vettel was not done trying yet, and within 35 minutes into the session, the German (on the mediums) zoomed past all the set times and posted 1:33.852, which even Hamilton, who was on the same set of tyres, could not get past.
The spin outs continued as Marussia driver Charles Pic slid off the track and even Lotus-Renault driver Kimi Raikkonen spun his car into the sand trap.
Paul di Resta had a quick spin in his Force India at the chicane but team mate Adrian Sutil was nowhere to be seen.
As the session came to a close the top ten in FP2 were; Vettel, Webber, Rosberg, Raikkonen, Grosjean, Hamilton, Ricciardo, Massa, Button and Alonso.
Image Source: Getty Images
Write your Comment