Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Identical times for Grosjean and Kobayashi

Romain Grosjean and Kamui Kobayashi posted exactly the same time on day two of the in-season test in Mugello

Lotus' Grosjean posted a 1:21.603 early in the day to claim the P1 honours before lunch and it looked like no one would match his time until Sauber's Kobayahshi popped up with the same time very late in the day.

Kobayashi, who was responsible for the only red flag of the day after spinning into the gravel in the afternoon, posted his time just moments before the chequered flag came out to signal the end of Wednesday's session.

Lotus later reported via Twitter that Grosjean, who replaced team-mate Kimi Raikkonen in the E20 on day two after the team opted not to run the Finn in Mugello, claimed 'P1 by the smallest margin imaginable! Less than 1 thousandth of a second!'

After the heavy downpours limited teams' running on Tuesday, the drivers made the most of the fine weather in Tuscany and opted to run their various aero sensors instead of going for all-out pace.
The Red Bull duo of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber were third and fourth fastest respectively. World Champion Vettel took over driving duties from his Australian team-mate in the afternoon and his best time was 0.222s slower than that of the top two.

Felipe Massa and Toro Rosso duo Jean Eric-Vergne and Daniel Riccoardo were next best.
Michael Schumacher was by far the busiest man on day two in Mugello having completed 144 laps. His best effort though was only good enough for P8.

McLaren, who have opted not to run race drivers Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton, were down in 11th place with Gary Paffett managing a 1:24.480 as his best effort.
The team later reported that they focused on "improvements to aero correlation and broadening our understanding of tyre temperature and behaviour" while "progress was brought to a premature end at 15:00 when a gearbox issue ended the day's running".

It was a tough day at the office for Force India's Paul di Resta as he could only manage 14 laps as he was forced to spend most of the day in the garage with a suspected hydraulics problem.

Times
01. Romain Grosjean Lotus 1:21.603
02. Kamui Kobayashi Sauber 1:21.603
03. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull 1.21.825 +0.222
04. Mark Webber Red Bull 1:21.997 +0.294
05. Felipe Massa Ferrari 1:22.257 +0.654
06. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 1:22.422 +0.819
07. Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso 1:22.588 +0.985
08. Michael Schumacher Mercedes 1:23.404 + 1.801s
09. Charles Pic Marussia 1:23.982 +2.379
10. Vitaly Petrov Caterham 1:24.312 +2.709
11. Gary Paffett McLaren 1:24.480 +2.877
12. Timo Glock Marussia 1:24.610 +3.007
13. Paul di Resta Force India 1:24.749 +3.146
14. Bruno Senna Williams 1:24.842 +3.239

Source: Planet-F1

No comments: