Sutil fastest in rain as Hamilton crashes

Posted on

| Written by

Adrian Sutil set the fastest time in a rain-hit first practice session at the Hockenheimring.

But McLaren’s hopes of gaining more useful information about their exhaust-blown diffuser were dashed when Lewis Hamilton crashed having done just eight laps.

Hamilton lost his McLaren at the exit of turn three, bounced across the grass and went into the barrier nose-first. The car rotated and hit the barrier at the left-rear corner causing significant damage.

Practice started on a very wet track which dried throughout the session.

Felipe Massa set the second fastest time after a series of spins on the drying track.

But the only other driver to join Hamilton in spinning out of the session was Bruno Senna, who got his HRT stuck in the gravel trap at the final corner in the final quarter of an hour.

Jenson Button improved to third at the end of an otherwise quiet session for McLaren.

Further rain is expected ahead of second practice in Germany.

Pos.CarDriverCarBest lapGapLaps
114Adrian SutilForce India-Mercedes1’25.70120
27Felipe MassaFerrari1’26.8501.14927
31Jenson ButtonMcLaren-Mercedes1’26.9361.23516
49Rubens BarrichelloWilliams-Cosworth1’26.9471.24621
512Vitaly PetrovRenault1’26.9481.24721
64Nico RosbergMercedes1’27.4481.74720
716Sebastien BuemiToro Rosso-Ferrari1’28.1142.41331
810Nico HulkenbergWilliams-Cosworth1’28.1932.49224
915Vitantonio LiuzziForce India-Mercedes1’28.3002.59919
1022Pedro de la RosaSauber-Ferrari1’28.4862.78523
115Sebastian VettelRed Bull-Renault1’28.7353.03421
1224Timo GlockVirgin-Cosworth1’28.7353.03421
1311Robert KubicaRenault1’28.9033.20220
146Mark WebberRed Bull-Renault1’29.0483.34713
1518Jarno TrulliLotus-Cosworth1’29.2803.57917
1617Jaime AlguersuariToro Rosso-Ferrari1’29.3663.66534
172Lewis HamiltonMcLaren-Mercedes1’29.4293.7288
1825Lucas di GrassiVirgin-Cosworth1’29.5003.79919
198Fernando AlonsoFerrari1’29.6843.98315
2023Kamui KobayashiSauber-Ferrari1’29.6903.98917
2119Fairuz FauzyLotus-Cosworth1’30.9385.23727
2221Bruno SennaHRT-Cosworth1’31.7206.01923
233Michael SchumacherMercedes1’32.4506.74913
2420Sakon YamamotoHRT-Cosworth1’32.7917.09026

2010 German Grand Prix

    Browse all 2010 German Grand Prix articles

    Image (C) Force India F1 Team

    Author information

    Keith Collantine
    Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

    Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

    41 comments on “Sutil fastest in rain as Hamilton crashes”

    1. richard hughes
      23rd July 2010, 10:44

      looks like virgin has found some good form to compete with some of the existing teams and with lotus saying that they have no more major upgrades for the car is this virgins time to take lotus’ crown of the fastest and best new team

      ps i support lotus :)

    2. I know wet track and all but would ya lookit that virgin in 12th. :)

    3. KK did 1-29.69 in practice. What is 10 sec penalty for?

    4. Great to see Force India heading the field, and quite funny to see the two “No 2 Drivers,” Button and Massa shining, the ones who were going to be destroyed by their teammates ;)

      Disapoited to see Lewis Hamilton ruin his car after the spin especialy since others were getting away with it, but there was a feeling of ” Not again Lewis!!”

      1. I’m not a hamilton fan at all, but his quality to push the car to the absolute limit (and sometimes over is) is something I’d like to see more drivers have. You have to agree that crashing a car now and then because you pushed to hard is a lot better than “saving tires” and “saving fuel”.

        1. sometimes you have to calm down and get the result you NEED other than the result you WANT. And that’s something i can’t stand about Lewis.

          Alright, he always pushes the car to its limits and always tries to overtake bla bla bla. But sometimes he does it too often with no reason whatsoever.

      2. “..Button and Massa shining..”

        Did you watch the session!!??

    5. Sutil is more then a second faster then number 2 what happend here? he drove around when it was dry? Is Lewis alright btw that must be a hard crash.

      1. Lewis said he was ok

        1. As they said in the commentary, no physical damage, but he’s probably unhappy with his mistake…

    6. Petrov remains a mystery…

    7. Senna in front of Schumacher, lets hope it continues for the rest of the weekend :D

    8. I missed this morning’s session and have just read about Ham’s crash. But what happened to Schu?

      1. Schu at the end of the session when it was quite dry was running around on the full wets. I have no idea why.

        1. doing some “testing” work – Schu. is a few tenths slower than Rosberg at present , not 5 secs slower

      2. They had some problems with their rear wing, they sent him out on worn wets at the end for an evaluation run.

    9. Weather-watchers can see the incoming belt of rain on the radar here. Hockenheim is roughly halfway between Stuttgart and Wiesbaden. The rain is coming from the south-west:

      http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/cgi-app/radar?CONT=euro&CREG=dwddg&LOOP=1&LTYP=tag&LANG=en&STRUCTUR=_&W=0&L=0&SLP=0&ROAD=0&CITY=

      1. fp2 is going to be very wet, if i see the chart correctly.

    10. Shumacher only beat Yamamoto? Wow, keep dreaming of the 2011 title!

    11. whats happened to that Force India, there are very little upgrades to VJM03. maybe others were taking it a bit easy, times hence would not be representative of true pace.

    12. Shame about Hamilton’s crash, but once these cars get away from you the track’s so slippery – as pretty much everyone demonstrated.

      It looks to me like they’re all trying to run “dry” low downforce settings because the forecast for Sunday is dry, but on the wet track I’m not sure they can be learning anything…

    13. I’m not jumping to any conclusion about the cars until the end of final practice session. Judging lap speeds based on their experimental setups most of the time gives the wrong impression.

    14. It seems when Sutil made his fast lap the track was ‘dried’ up on the raceline so he used intermeds? They all run low downforce setting for the dry? And what are they going todo for the Qualifer? I think Sutil can keep the most behind him when he is starting as number 1.

      But there is more rain expected so lets wait for FP2

      1. You assume that sutil will start from pole after 1st (wet!) FP? :)

        1. No i didn’t say that. only said to say it’s stupid to think other where on dry low downforce setup. We can actually only hope he starts on Pole )

          1. ah, ok :) thanx for explanation :)

    15. Gentlemen, start your conspiracy theories!!! Should they take the floor/EBD off JB’s car to replace Lewis’s broken one with?

      1. mclaren says they have a spare floor…so no “red bull story” here!!

        http://mclaren.com/home

    16. i think Sutil is one of the best drivers in wet. So if its raining we may see him on podium on race day as redbull, ferrari and hamilton will struggle to keep their car on track lol :)

      1. vettel was 3 tenths faster then sutil’s time in the first sector nere the end, but didn’t complete the lap because he knew what he could do.

    17. will hamilton be in practice 2? or was the damage to much? any news…

    18. Without fail, every race, people getting all excited about times in Practice 1. It doesn’t matter, teams are just setting up and running different configurations.

      Any one notice how Massa has become almost invisible this year? He hardly gets a mention.

      1. Actually I’d prefer it if he was. All I’m hearing is how terrible he’s doing! :P

      2. I agree with you – like I said above , Schu. 5 secs. slower than Rosberg , but they are trying things out in case of a wet race. Like the first Red Bull is P11 , but we know its the fastest car.

      3. Massa likes the wet so much, he tries to wash water around as much as possible. The guy has done a Silverstone 08 like stunt.

    19. Sutil is showing remarkable consistency this year and has always been quick in the wet. As for Schumi, one can only marvel at his state of denial. His dreams of a title in 2011 are a pie in the sky. Mercedes should better approach Sutil than keep him in 2011.

      1. You’re right….he is consistent and ballsy……I just wish he had some personality!!

    20. How bad is Yamamoto?

      That bad ! I would be very annoyed if I were Bruno or Karun.

      I did enjoy the later’s commentaries. Maybe we could put a mike in his helmet next time he races?

      “Oups, here go the Mc Larens, who next? Let’s hope it’s not Webber, I’m kinda sweaty when I know he is about to lap me!”

      1. He is approximately .3s worse than Michael Schumacher.

        1. Thats not saying much.

    21. Nice to see Sutil there as well as Massa who had some spin but still manages to get a good lap time.The biggest surprise to me was Schumacher who finished 23rd,can anyone give me any reason as I missed some of the live blogging of the practice.

      I don’t know whether it will be wet on Saturday & Sunday if it is then we may see people like Mclaren, Force India & even Ferrari to take the challenge to the Red Bulls.

    Comments are closed.