Friday Practice for the Spanish Grand Prix began in unseasonably cold conditions. During the morning session Cosworth saw their first engine failure of the season when the engine in Nico Hulkenberg’s William FW32 let go.
Hulkenberg’s bad luck continued in the afternoon session when he ran wide, the car appeared to dig into to the crash verge spinning Hukenberg across the track and into the tire wall damaging the nose of the car and bringing out the “Red Flag” which limited running in the second practice session for everyone.
Red Bull ended the afternoon session with both Drivers at the top of the time charts, Vettel setting a blistering time and the only car to get below the 1:20 barrier, gapping Webber by just over two tenths of a second.
Spanish GP Second Practice Session Times
| Position | Team | Driver | Best Lap | Time Difference | # of Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Red Bull Racing | Sebastian Vettel | 1:19.965 | - | 24 |
| 2 | Red Bull Racing | Mark Webber | 1:20.175 | +0.210 | 35 |
| 3 | Mercedes GP | Michael Schumacher | 1:20.757 | +0.792 | 28 |
| 4 | Ferrari | Fernando Alonso | 1:20.819 | +0.854 | 30 |
| 5 | McLaren | Lewis Hamilton | 1:21.191 | +1.226 | 23 |
| 6 | Renault F1 | Robert Kubica | 1:21.202 | +1.237 | 36 |
| 7 | Mercedes GP | Nico Rosberg | 1:21.271 | +1.306 | 27 |
| 8 | Ferrari | Felipe Massa | 1:21.302 | +1.337 | 25 |
| 9 | McLaren | Jenson Button | 1:21.364 | +1.399 | 26 |
| 10 | Force India | Adrian Sutil | 1:21.518 | +1.553 | 32 |
| 11 | BMW Sauber F1 | Pedro De La Rosa | 1:21.672 | +1.707 | 37 |
| 12 | Force India | Tonio Liuzzi | 1:21.904 | +1.939 | 32 |
| 13 | BMW Sauber F1 | Kamui Kobayashi | 1:21.931 | +1.966 | 29 |
| 14 | Toro Rosso | Sebastien Buemi | 1:22.184 | +2.219 | 37 |
| 15 | Williams F1 | Rubens Barrichello | 1:22.192 | +2.227 | 33 |
| 16 | Renault | Vitaly Petrov | 1:22.435 | +2.470 | 35 |
| 17 | Toro Rosso | Jaime Alguersuari | 1:22.449 | +2.484 | 34 |
| 18 | Williams F1 | Nico Hulkenberg | 1:23.765 | +3.800 | 7 |
| 19 | Lotus Racing | Jarno Trulli | 1:24.209 | +4.244 | 26 |
| 20 | Lotus Racing | Heikki Kovalainen | 1:24.894 | +4.929 | 22 |
| 21 | Virgin Racing | Lucas Di Grassi | 1:25.066 | +5.101 | 30 |
| 22 | HRT F1 Racing | Karun Chandhok | 1:25.972 | +6.006 | 23 |
| 23 | HRT F1 Racing | Bruno Senna | 1:26.152 | +6.187 | 25 |
| 24 | Virgin Racing | Timo Glock | 1:26.596 | +6.631 | 21 |
Many of the teams were trying out their new modifications, Mercedes GP had a significantly modified car for Michael Schumacher which has been modified to reduce the under-steer issues that he has been complaining about, whatever Mercedes did seems to suit Michael’s driving style, setting third fastest time of the day.
Alonso And Massa were testing Ferrari’s version of the McLaren “F Duct” which stalls the air over the rear wing to increase straight line speed. According to Fernando Alonso will have to wait for qualifying to see if Ferrari actually going to use it in the race:
“It’s always nice to race in Barcelona, in front of so many fans, even on a Friday morning: it is definitely a source of extra motivation for me to do well. We worked with different fuel loads, both for qualifying and the race. We are reasonably happy with how things went and with the performance of the updates we tried on track, but we will have to wait until tomorrow to really understand where we stand compared to the other leading teams. As for the new rear wing, we will decide this evening whether or not to also use it in qualifying and the race: the system worked well but obviously, despite the fact we have tested it on various occasions, we still lack a bit of experience before we can get the best out of it.”
Qualifying will be really interesting tomorrow, can Red Bull lock up the front row of the grid again? Will the new modifications on the Ferrari’s give them the speed they are looking for, and will Michael Schumacher out qualify his team mate Nico Rosberg for the first time this season now that he has a car that suits his driving style.
Not long to wait, don’t forget to set your DVR’s the weekend Race schedule can be found here
