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Going the Distance – Bahrain Grand Prix, Free Practice 2 Report
The Lotus F1 Team drivers put some good mileage under their wheels in the second of today’s sessions this afternoon, with setup work the order of the day under the blistering Bahrain sun.
At 14:00 local time on the dot, the pit lane opened for the second round of Formula 1 action here at the Bahrain International circuit today. Both drivers completed short first runs on the white marked medium compound tyres, Kimi notching up 4 laps and Romain 3 tours of the 5.4km circuit before heading back to base for practise pull aways.
15 minutes and a few setup tweaks later, the pair were back at out on track on the same tyres as used in the previous run. This time Romain put in the most laps of the two, racking up 5 in comparison to Kimi’s 3.
The Finn’s third run of the session saw the first appearance of the yellow marked soft tyres as he emerged from the garage with just under an hour left to run. Romain followed 10 minutes later, again on the softer of the two tyre compounds, with each driver recording 3 laps apiece.
At the halfway stage of the session, Romain sat just inside the top 10 in P8, with Kimi down in P18. Setup changes had been the order of the day thus far, with a variety of different options being assessed.
Entering the second half of running and it was Kimi who once again lead the team back into the on track action, completing a 4 lap stint on the soft tyres and improving his time in the process. Romain, having been in deep discussion with his engineers, waited patiently for his next opportunity to throw his E20 around the circuit, emerging with just over 30 minutes left to run sporting the same compound of tyres.
Kimi’s was only a brief break, with fresh rubber bolted on – medium compound this time – and a practice start as he re-joined the fray. Longer stints this time around for both drivers; 11 and 15 laps added to the Finn’s and Frenchman’s totals respectively before diving into the pits for a pair of pit-stop simulations.
Each driver headed straight back onto the track having put the mechanics through their paces; Kimi on another set of soft tyres and Romain on the medium compound. As the session entered its final 10 minutes, this would prove to be the final chance for the team to analyse the E20’s performance this afternoon.
Pos-Driver---------------Team-----------------Time---------------Laps 1. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m32.816s 35 2. Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 1m33.262s + 0.446 26 3. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m33.525s + 0.709 28 4. Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1m33.747s + 0.931 26 5. Michael Schumacher Mercedes 1m33.862s + 1.046 31 6. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1m34.246s + 1.430 28 7. Kamui Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 1m34.411s + 1.595 34 8. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m34.449s + 1.633 31 9. Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 1m34.615s + 1.799 32 10. Sergio Perez Sauber-Ferrari 1m34.893s + 2.077 34 11. Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m34.895s + 2.079 29 12. Felipe Massa Ferrari 1m34.941s + 2.125 29 13. Kimi Raikkonen Lotus-Renault 1m35.183s + 2.367 33 14. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m35.229s + 2.413 26 15. Pastor Maldonado Williams-Renault 1m35.459s + 2.643 38 16. Vitaly Petrov Caterham-Renault 1m35.913s + 3.097 32 17. Heikki Kovalainen Caterham-Renault 1m35.968s + 3.152 35 18. Bruno Senna Williams-Renault 1m36.169s + 3.353 30 19. Timo Glock Marussia-Cosworth 1m36.587s + 3.771 32 20. Charles Pic Marussia-Cosworth 1m37.803s + 4.987 33 21. Pedro de la Rosa HRT-Cosworth 1m37.812s + 4.996 28 22. Narain Karthikeyan HRT-Cosworth 1m39.649s + 6.833 27
Kimi Raikkonen – 13th: “The soft tyres felt better today but we have to work out which tyre will work best over a stint duration. It’s too early to draw any conclusion and we have to look at the data. At the moment, it doesn’t look like the difference will be night and day. The track conditions were surprisingly good straight away in first practice today, and it didn’t feel like a massive difference in the second session. Hopefully the wind does not get up overnight and blow sand on to the track. Tyre degradation should be interesting. There are things you can do as a driver to minimise this, but you can do more with the set-up of the car. I hope we find a good solution.”
James Allison, Technical Director: “There’s a pattern emerging over the first four races where it seems that the programme we run on a Friday is different from that run by other teams, so you can’t draw too many conclusions merely from looking at our position on the timing monitors. The key for this weekend’s race will be making the tyres work in the heat and we’re encouraged by our pace using both tyres with both cars on high fuel today. We ran comparisons of our upgrade components and we have plenty of data to make an assessment.”
What a Difference a Week Makes – Bahrain Grand Prix, Free Practice 1 Report
Pos-Driver---------------Team------------------Time--------------Laps 1. Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1m33.572 11 2. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m33.877s + 0.305 21 3. Paul di Resta Force India-Mercedes 1m34.150s + 0.578 26 4. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m34.249s + 0.677 23 5. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1m34.277s + 0.705 14 6. Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 1m34.344s + 0.772 26 7. Michael Schumacher Mercedes 1m34.483s + 0.911 17 8. Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 1m34.552s + 0.980 22 9. Kimi Raikkonen Lotus-Renault 1m34.609s + 1.037 17 10. Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 1m34.847s + 1.275 20 11. Sergio Perez Sauber-Ferrari 1m35.024s + 1.452 22 12. Pastor Maldonado Williams-Renault 1m35.268s + 1.696 24 13. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m35.436s + 1.864 21 14. Valtteri Bottas Williams-Renault 1m35.497s + 1.925 24 15. Felipe Massa Ferrari 1m35.719s + 2.147 19 16. Kamui Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 1m35.929s + 2.357 24 17. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m36.195s + 2.623 20 18. Heikki Kovalainen Caterham-Renault 1m36.330s + 2.758 11 19. Vitaly Petrov Caterham-Renault 1m36.484s + 2.912 18 20. Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m36.591s + 3.019 20 21. Charles Pic Marussia-Cosworth 1m37.467s + 3.895 17 22. Timo Glock Marussia-Cosworth 1m38.006s + 4.434 18 23. Pedro de la Rosa HRT-Cosworth 1m38.877s + 5.305 19 24. Narain Karthikeyan HRT-Cosworth 1m39.996s + 6.424 23
FUCK ISRAEL 