GP Monaco, Free Practice 2: Button at the top, then the rain ruins the plans

Jenson Button was the fastest driver in FP2 at the Monaco GP, ahead of Grosjean and the two Ferraris of Massa and Alonso, but the rain was the protagonist of the session, preventing the drivers from verifying their potential.

In fact, the Englishman from McLaren achieved the best time of the day, lapping in 1'15”746 at the start of the afternoon tests and using the Supersoft tyres, edging out 392 thousandths of a second from Romain Grosjean in the Lotus and 856 and 915 thousandths respectively from the Ferraris of Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso, who started on the Softs. Then, just a quarter of an hour before the start, the rain: a sudden downpour which first dampened the track and which saw some drivers, including Alonso, continue to run on dry tyres, and which then increased in intensity forced everyone to ride the Intermediates. The times in this case were much slower, about 20" more than those in the dry, although in the final tests with the track drying Mark Webber on Red Bull was able to do 1'32", 17 ” slower than Button.

Webber finished seventh on dry tires, 1 seconds behind Button, preceded by Pastor Maldonado in the Williams and Nico Rosberg in the Mercedes. Behind the Australian, trailing by just 4 thousandths, was Kamui Kobayashi with the Sauber, then Michael Schumacher with the other Mercedes and finally Sebastian Vettel completed the Top 5 with the number 10 Red Bull. For the world champion a gap from Button of 1"1, which however is not very indicative given that the other McLaren driver finished 5"1 behind his teammate. The tests were therefore absolutely interlocutory and the slippery track saw numerous big men: among these, Sergio Perez with the Sauber, Heikki Kovalainen with the Caterham repaired in record time, Maldonado and his teammate Bruno Senna and finally Felipe Massa were also victims of longs at the Mirabeau curve. However, no pilots were involved in accidents. Free practice will continue tomorrow, starting at 629am.

Lorena Bianchi

Here are the FP2 times:

Pos Driver Team Time Laps 1. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1m15.746 14 2. Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 1m16.138s + 0,392 17 3. Felipe Massa Ferrari 1m16.602s + 0,856 19 4. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m16.661s + 0,915 21 5. Pastor Maldonado Williams-Renault 1m16.820s + 1,074 18 6. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m17.021s + 1,275 13 7. Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 1m17.148s + 1,402 21 8. Kamui Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 1m17.153s + 1,407 20 9. Michael Schumacher Mercedes 1m17.293s + 1,547 9 10. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m17.303s + 1,557 19 11. Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1m17.375s + 1,629 17 12. Paul di Resta Force India-Mercedes 1m17.395 .1,649s + 19 13 1. Bruno Senna Williams-Renault 17.655m1,909s + 18 14 1. Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 17.800m2,054s + 23 15 1. Sergio Perez Sauber-Ferrari 18.251m2,505s + 22 16 1. Vitaly Petrov Cater ham -Renault 18.440m2,694s + 23 17 1. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso-Ferrari 18.522m2,776s + 20 18 1. Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso-Ferrari 18.808m3,062s + 24 19 1. Kimi Raikkonen Lotus-Renault 19.267m3,521s + 23 20 1. Timo Glock Marussia-Cosworth 19.309m3,563s + 27 21 1. Heikki Kovalainen Caterham-Renault 20.029m4,283s + 13 22 1. Charles Pic Marussia-Cosworth 20.240m4,494s + 19 23 1. Pedro de la Rosa HRT-Cosworth 20.631m 4,885 .12s + 24 1 20.886. Narain Karthikeyan HRT-Cosworth 5,140m10s + XNUMX XNUMX