ITALY GP – FRIDAY PRACTICE RESULTS

PRACTICE TWO

Report – Kimi Raikkonen set the third fastest time in the second free practice session for the Italian Grand Prix, while Fernando Alonso was fourth. Temperatures were slightly higher this afternoon than in the morning at Monza, as the F14 Ts completed a total of 57 laps between them, which is more than a race distance. Kimi and Fernando continued to work on set-up and ran a comparison between the two compounds Pirelli has supplied this weekend: the Hard, which was also tried in the morning and the Medium, which is faster over a single lap.

Raikkonen did 31 laps, the best in 1.26.331 and Alonso did 26, the fastest being a 1.26.565. In the final half hour, both Scuderia drivers did long runs so as to evaluate the behaviour of the car and tyres over a long run.

FP2 Times:

Pos	Driver	Car	Time	Gap	Total laps
1	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1m26.225s	–	41
2	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1m26.286s	0.061s	16
3	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1m26.331s	0.106s	31
4	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1m26.565s	0.340s	26
5	Valtteri Bottas	Williams/Mercedes	1m26.758s	0.533s	34
6	Jenson Button	McLaren/Mercedes	1m26.762s	0.537s	34
7	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull/Renault	1m26.762s	0.537s	27
8	Kevin Magnussen	McLaren/Mercedes	1m26.881s	0.656s	44
9	Felipe Massa	Williams/Mercedes	1m26.935s	0.710s	33
10	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull/Renault	1m26.992s	0.767s	37
11	Sergio Perez	Force India/Mercedes	1m27.079s	0.854s	42
12	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India/Mercedes	1m27.227s	1.002s	39
13	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso/Renault	1m27.476s	1.251s	37
14	Esteban Gutierrez	Sauber/Ferrari	1m27.840s	1.615s	33
15	Jean-Eric Vergne	Toro Rosso/Renault	1m27.929s	1.704s	33
16	Adrian Sutil	Sauber/Ferrari	1m28.029s	1.804s	35
17	Jules Bianchi	Marussia/Ferrari	1m28.659s	2.434s	34
18	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus/Renault	1m28.700s	2.475s	42
19	Max Chilton	Marussia/Ferrari	1m28.786s	2.561s	29
20	Romain Grosjean	Lotus/Renault	1m29.085s	2.860s	29
21	Kamui Kobayashi	Caterham/Renault	1m29.178s	2.953s	32
22	Marcus Ericsson	Caterham/Renault	1m29.275s	3.050s	37

 

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PRACTICE ONE

Report – Under overcast skies, but in dry conditions, Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen completed 23 and 27 laps respectively, working on set-up, while also starting work on evaluating the Hard Pirelli tyres. Fernando’s best time was a 1.27.169, which puts him fourth, while Kimi stopped the clocks in 1.27.493 to take seventh place on the time sheet.

FP1 Times:

Pos	Driver	Car	Time	Gap	Total laps
1	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1m26.187s	–	25
2	Jenson Button	McLaren/Mercedes	1m26.810s	0.623s	27
3	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1m26.995s	0.808s	26
4	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1m27.169s	0.982s	23
5	Kevin Magnussen	McLaren/Mercedes	1m27.228s	1.041s	30
6	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull/Renault	1m27.271s	1.084s	27
7	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1m27.493s	1.306s	27
8	Sergio Perez	Force India/Mercedes	1m27.687s	1.500s	13
9	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso/Renault	1m27.741s	1.554s	33
10	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India/Mercedes	1m28.112s	1.925s	23
11	Esteban Gutierrez	Sauber/Ferrari	1m28.114s	1.927s	21
12	Valtteri Bottas	Williams/Mercedes	1m28.148s	1.961s	20
13	Felipe Massa	Williams/Mercedes	1m28.150s	1.963s	21
14	Jean-Eric Vergne	Toro Rosso/Renault	1m28.300s	2.113s	30
15	Giedo van der Garde	Sauber/Ferrari	1m28.429s	2.242s	19
16	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull/Renault	1m28.487s	2.300s	12
17	Daniel Juncadella	Force India/Mercedes	1m29.192s	3.005s	10
18	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus/Renault	1m29.512s	3.325s	24
19	Max Chilton	Marussia/Ferrari	1m30.017s	3.830s	25
20	Jules Bianchi	Marussia/Ferrari	1m30.081s	3.894s	27
21	Charles Pic	Lotus/Renault	1m30.125s	3.938s	23
22	Roberto Merhi	Caterham/Renault	1m30.704s	4.517s	29
23	Marcus Ericsson	Caterham/Renault	1m30.948s	4.761s	16

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QUOTES

Kimi Raikkonen: “That was a very busy day, but a positive one. We made the most of every minute available to us in both sessions, managing to try everything we had on our programme. In the morning, we concentrated on assessing different aero configurations, in search of the best level of downforce. Then in the afternoon, we opted for an intermediate solution that seemed to produce the best results on both compounds. The difference between the Medium and the Hard is more or less what we expected; the softer one behaves well, but in terms of driveability, I found the Hard wasn’t bad either.”

Pat Fry: “Monza is a special circuit with unique characteristics. The long straights and the small number of corners mean that on Friday one has to work on finding the best aerodynamic configuration. Even if in general, the cars have less downforce, this year it’s more complicated than usual to find the right set-up and decide what is the right level of downforce for the fast corners such as Ascari or the Parabolica. Therefore, in the morning and the afternoon, we worked to improve the cars’ stability and now we will try and optimise our package based on the data gathered from both drivers. Fortunately, we encountered no problems today and it was important to get through the programme, including evaluating tyre performance, as the ability to generate grip from the tyres is even more important when the cars are running in low downforce configuration. Overall, we are pleased with today’s work, but we know we still face a particularly demanding weekend.”