Belgium Grand Prix – Friday Practice Results

| Source: autosport.com | lotusf1team.com |

FP2 Times: FP2 Report – With the sun making a breakthrough in the Belgian hills, Kimi and Romain did much the same during this afternoon’s session at Spa. P6 / P3 respectively was the result; here’s how it happened…

Pos  Driver               Team/Car              Time       Gap      Laps
 1.  Sebastian Vettel     Red Bull-Renault      1m49.331s           22
 2.  Mark Webber          Red Bull-Renault      1m49.390s  +0.059s  34
 3.  Romain Grosjean      Lotus-Renault         1m50.149s  +0.818s  34
 4.  Felipe Massa         Ferrari               1m50.164s  +0.833s  27
 5.  Jean-Eric Vergne     Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m50.253s  +0.922s  28
 6.  Kimi Raikkonen       Lotus-Renault         1m50.318s  +0.987s  33
 7.  Fernando Alonso      Ferrari               1m50.510s  +1.179s  21
 8.  Sergio Perez         McLaren-Mercedes      1m50.536s  +1.205s  27
 9.  Nico Rosberg         Mercedes              1m50.601s  +1.270s  33
10.  Paul di Resta        Force India-Mercedes  1m50.611s  +1.280s  27
11.  Adrian Sutil         Force India-Mercedes  1m50.629s  +1.298s  30
12.  Lewis Hamilton       Mercedes              1m50.751s  +1.420s  27
13.  Nico Hulkenberg      Sauber-Ferrari        1m50.972s  +1.641s  33
14.  Pastor Maldonado     Williams-Renault      1m50.991s  +1.660s  28
15.  Jenson Button        McLaren-Mercedes      1m51.195s  +1.864s  28
16.  Daniel Ricciardo     Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m51.447s  +2.116s  26
17.  Valtteri Bottas      Williams-Renault      1m51.568s  +2.237s  28
18.  Esteban Gutierrez    Sauber-Ferrari        1m51.644s  +2.313s  26
19.  Giedo van der Garde  Caterham-Renault      1m53.157s  +3.826s  21
20.  Charles Pic          Caterham-Renault      1m53.251s  +3.920s  29
21.  Jules Bianchi        Marussia-Cosworth     1m53.482s  +4.151s  28
22.  Max Chilton          Marussia-Cosworth     1m54.418s  +5.087s  12

FP1 Times: FP1 Report – Mixed weather on the opening morning here at Spa limited Kimi and Romain to just a handful of laps, as the team awaits more suitable conditions in which to trial the latest E21 developments.

Pos  Driver               Team/Car              Time       Gap      Laps
 1.  Fernando Alonso      Ferrari               1m55.198s           11
 2.  Paul di Resta        Force India-Mercedes  1m55.224s  +0.026s  10
 3.  Adrian Sutil         Force India-Mercedes  1m55.373s  +0.175s  11
 4.  Sergio Perez         McLaren-Mercedes      1m55.518s  +0.320s  14
 5.  Nico Rosberg         Mercedes              1m55.614s  +0.416s  10
 6.  Sebastian Vettel     Red Bull-Renault      1m55.636s  +0.438s  14
 7.  Esteban Gutierrez    Sauber-Ferrari        1m55.954s  +0.756s  18
 8.  Nico Hulkenberg      Sauber-Ferrari        1m56.110s  +0.912s  11
 9.  Daniel Ricciardo     Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m56.770s  +1.572s  14
10.  Valtteri Bottas      Williams-Renault      1m56.858s  +1.660s  18
11.  Felipe Massa         Ferrari               1m56.863s  +1.665s  10
12.  Pastor Maldonado     Williams-Renault      1m57.081s  +1.883s  14
13.  Jean-Eric Vergne     Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m57.084s  +1.886s  17
14.  Jenson Button        McLaren-Mercedes      1m57.281s  +2.083s  14
15.  Lewis Hamilton       Mercedes              1m57.358s  +2.160s  10
16.  Heikki Kovalainen    Caterham-Renault      1m57.821s  +2.623s  16
17.  Giedo van der Garde  Caterham-Renault      1m57.887s  +2.689s  16
18.  Max Chilton          Marussia-Cosworth     1m58.600s  +3.402s  14
19.  Mark Webber          Red Bull-Renault      1m58.929s  +3.731s  12
20.  Jules Bianchi        Marussia-Cosworth     1m59.209s  +4.011s  12
21.  Kimi Raikkonen       Lotus-Renault         1m59.441s  +4.243s  11
22.  Romain Grosjean      Lotus-Renault         2m03.176s  +7.978s  15

Lotus Friday Quotes:

Kimi Raikkonen – 21st/6th: “I feel fine here today and the car was okay. It could have been a bit better, but it wasn’t a disaster either so for sure we can improve a bit more for tomorrow. The weather wasn’t great this morning and it’s certainly better for us when it’s dry. We had a little problem with the front wheel in the first session which meant we didn’t run as much as we wanted to. The afternoon was pretty normal. For sure it looks like it will be a difficult weekend to beat Red Bull but that’s what we must try to do if we want to catch them in the championship.”

Romain Grosjean – 22nd/3rd: “It has been a busy day. We had planned to focus on evaluating our Device this morning, but with the changing atmospheric conditions we weren’t able to 100 per cent complete all the tests so with more rain forecast we decided to take it off for the afternoon to concentrate on a more normal programme with long runs. It wasn’t that easy as we found it quite hard to make the tyres work the way we would like them to which meant that in the car the feeling might not have been so good, but timing-wise it was actually okay. The car felt pretty good and we’ll work on this baseline to continue to improve. We’ll wait to see what the weather will have in store for us.”

Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director: “Unfortunately the wet conditions this morning meant we weren’t able to get as much work done as we wanted on our Device so we elected to revert to a known set-up for the afternoon, with everything going to plan. Neither driver was entirely on top of their car, but given the conditions today I don’t expect any team was after the mixed weather in the morning. We concentrated a little on set-up and more on tyre evaluation ready for the rest of the weekend. From the data we’ve seen so far we look reasonably strong on pace and tyre performance, so we’re looking forward to the rest of the weekend.”

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