Brazil Grand Prix – Friday Practice Results

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A productive afternoon in São Paulo saw Kimi and Romain rack up the laps to bring their E20s home in P12 / P9 respectively, with plenty of data now in the team’s arsenal heading into what could be a weekend of typically unpredictable conditions…

Summary

Track temperatures nudging 50 degrees created ideal conditions for a busy session
During the break the team discovered – and solved – the engine coil issue which had plagued Kimi’s car in FP1
Both drivers ran the silver marked hard and white marked medium compound Pirelli tyres
The team assessed high downforce setup options in preparation for the predicted rain over the rest of the weekend
Yellow flags emerged with 70mins elapsed as the Marussia of Charles Pic stopped out on track
Practice pit stops wrapped up a productive session for the team

Kimi Räikkönen, E20-05

Position: P12
Fastest Lap: 1:15.371
Laps Completed: 39

Key Moments:
03mins: Straight out on hard tyres for an early stint
22mins: Second outing on scrubbed hards; race simulation during a long run
24mins: Runs deep into T1; holds the car well to coax it back on track
45mins: P6 at half distance
65mins: Opening medium shod stint; regains top 10 position
67mins: Reports overheating from both front and rear tyres
90mins: Session ends; P12 for the Finn

FP2 Times:

Pos  Driver                Team                  Time               Laps
 1.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes      1m14.026s           35
 2.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault      1m14.300s  + 0.274  40
 3.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault      1m14.523s  + 0.497  37
 4.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari               1m14.553s  + 0.527  37
 5.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari               1m14.592s  + 0.566  37
 6.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes              1m14.654s  + 0.628  36
 7.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes              1m14.669s  + 0.643  40
 8.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes      1m14.863s  + 0.837  40
 9.  Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault         1m14.994s  + 0.968  37
10.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes  1m15.129s  + 1.103  39
11.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes  1m15.131s  + 1.105  40
12.  Kimi Raikkonen        Lotus-Renault         1m15.371s  + 1.345  39
13.  Bruno Senna           Williams-Renault      1m15.432s  + 1.406  45
14.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari        1m15.542s  + 1.516  35
15.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari        1m15.839s  + 1.813  43
16.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m15.902s  + 1.876  39
17.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Renault      1m15.953s  + 1.927  47
18.  Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m16.048s  + 2.022  40
19.  Vitaly Petrov         Caterham-Renault      1m16.126s  + 2.100  39
20.  Heikki Kovalainen     Caterham-Renault      1m16.655s  + 2.629  42
21.  Pedro de la Rosa      HRT-Cosworth          1m17.244s  + 3.218  15
22.  Timo Glock            Marussia-Cosworth     1m17.675s  + 3.649  42
23.  Charles Pic           Marussia-Cosworth     1m18.127s  + 4.101  31
24.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth          1m18.139s  + 4.113  15

Friday team quotes:

Kimi Raikkonen – 16th/12th: “We had a problem in the morning but it’s just one of those things; you don’t want it to happen, but it’s not the end of the world. It’s unfortunate it took a while to fix as we missed time on track. Other than that, it was a very normal Friday for us. It was quite difficult to find a good set-up so we tried quite a few things. Tricky is usually the way for our Friday’s and we’ve always been able to find a better set-up for Saturday so that’s exactly what we’ll try to do for tomorrow.”

Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director: “We’ve had an encouraging start to the weekend. Although Kimi’s track time in FP1 was restricted, Romain completed some interesting back-to-back comparison runs with Pirelli’s 2013 development tyre which looks to be a few tenths quicker than the current configuration even on this year’s car. Kimi had some catching up to do in the afternoon and struggled initially on the prime tyres, but with a few balance tweaks to accommodate the soaring track temperatures and his engine now running as it should he settled down to put in some decent runs. The track temperature was around ten degrees higher than in the morning – one of the hottest Friday’s we’ve seen all year in fact – and therefore yielded less grip. Despite this however, our long run pace with Romain looked very competitive. We also ran differing setups in anticipation of a potentially dry qualifying, wet race scenario, so there’s a lot of data to look at overnight but overall we’re pretty pleased.”

FP1 Report:

A mixed start to the weekend here at Interlagos saw Kimi restricted to a handful of laps, while Romain racked up a good haul of tours in the opening practice session for the Brazilian Grand Prix. P16 [KR] / P7 [RG] was the result; here’s how it happened…

Summary

A warm, dry and bright start to the weekend under idyllic blue skies in São Paulo
Both drivers trialled the orange marked, 2013 specification hard compound Pirelli tyres in addition to running the more orthodox silver marked hard rubber
Kimi had to wait until very late in proceedings to set a flying lap after being confined to the garage for most of the session; the team investigating engine gremlins
Romain ran a new variation of front drums on his E20; feedback and data to be analysed during the break
Aero logging and safeguard setup runs in case of a wet qualifying / race scenario were the order of the day

Kimi Räikkönen, E20-05

Position: P16
Fastest Lap: 1:15.701
Laps Completed: 16

Key Moments:
00mins: Immediately emerges for an install lap on the 2013 spec hard tyres
24mins: First run of the weekend; remains on the 2013 spec rubber, returns to base without setting a time after reporting unusual engine behaviour
56mins: Returns to the track to investigate engine issues; immediately back to the box with similar feedback to before
75mins: Launches down the pit lane for a final attempt of the morning; engine sounding much healthier, remaining out for a long stint on hard tyres
90mins: Session ends; P16 for the Finn

FP1 Times:

Pos  Driver                Team                   Time               Laps
 1.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes       1m14.131s            33
 2.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault       1m14.140s  + 0.009   35
 3.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault       1m14.198s  + 0.067   34
 4.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes       1m14.217s  + 0.086   31
 5.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari                1m14.392s  + 0.261   28
 6.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari                1m14.716s  + 0.585   29
 7.  Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault          1m14.719s  + 0.588   33
 8.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes   1m14.738s  + 0.607   34
 9.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Renault       1m15.015s  + 0.884   37
10.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes   1m15.050s  + 0.919   32
11.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes               1m15.114s  + 0.983   36
12.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari         1m15.255s  + 1.124   31
13.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari         1m15.396s  + 1.265   32
14.  Valtteri Bottas       Williams-Renault       1m15.413s  + 1.282   23
15.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m15.587s  + 1.456   35
16.  Kimi Raikkonen        Lotus-Renault          1m15.701s  + 1.570   16
17.  Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m16.048s  + 1.917   35
18.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes               1m16.315s  + 2.184   36
19.  Giedo van der Garde   Caterham-Renault       1m16.460s  + 2.329   32
20.  Timo Glock            Marussia-Cosworth      1m16.506s  + 2.375   31
21.  Vitaly Petrov         Caterham-Renault       1m16.617s  + 2.486   30
22.  Charles Pic           Marussia-Cosworth      1m17.234s  + 3.103   26
23.  Pedro de la Rosa      HRT-Cosworth           1m17.678s  + 3.547   15
24.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth           1m17.895s  + 3.764   13