Alonso leads final practice amid crashes

2011 Monaco Grand Prix

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Fernando Alonso, Ferrari, Monaco, 2011

Fernando Alonso was fastest in the final practice session at Monaco which was disrupted by two crashes.

The session was only eight laps old when Nico Rosberg crashed at the Nouvelle chicane on his first flying lap.

He lost control of his car much as Vitaly Petrov had on Thursday, but hurtled onto the run-off at the chicane with broken steering. The car briefly flew through the air after hitting a run-off strip and came perilously lose to hitting the barrier, before coming to a stop.

The session was stopped for 13 minutes while the car was recovered.

Vitantonio Liuzzi crashes – for the second time this weekend – at Sainte Devote, five minutes before the end of the session.

The HRT was recovered quickly and the session was restarted with two minutes left.

Liuzzi’s crash came as the Red Bulls were about to do their quickest laps on super-soft tyres.

Fernando Alonso had already gone fastest with a 1’14.433, a comfortable half-second quicker than Jenson Button.

The other McLaren of Lewis Hamilton was sixth after losing time with a steering problem earlier in the session.

Felipe Massa was third fastest after a trip down the escape road at Sainte Devote.

Vettel was fourth ahead of Michael Schumacher.

Jaime Alguersuari was eighth-fastest despite clipping the barrier during one run.

The other Toro Rosso of Sebastien Buemi was ninth in front of Sergio Perez, who was one of few drivers to improve his lap time after the second red flag.

Pos.CarDriverCarBest lapGap
15Fernando AlonsoFerrari1’14.43318
24Jenson ButtonMcLaren-Mercedes1’14.9960.56317
36Felipe MassaFerrari1’15.0240.59119
41Sebastian VettelRed Bull-Renault1’15.2450.81219
57Michael SchumacherMercedes1’15.3100.87721
63Lewis HamiltonMcLaren-Mercedes1’15.3860.95314
72Mark WebberRed Bull-Renault1’15.7721.33919
819Jaime AlguersuariToro Rosso-Ferrari1’16.6172.18413
918Sebastien BuemiToro Rosso-Ferrari1’16.7362.30315
1017Sergio PerezSauber-Ferrari1’16.8212.38817
1115Paul di RestaForce India-Mercedes1’16.9902.55720
1211Rubens BarrichelloWilliams-Cosworth1’17.1962.76313
1312Pastor MaldonadoWilliams-Cosworth1’17.3332.90017
1416Kamui KobayashiSauber-Ferrari1’17.4032.97018
1510Vitaly PetrovRenault1’17.7793.34617
169Nick HeidfeldRenault1’17.8803.44717
1714Adrian SutilForce India-Mercedes1’18.0693.63617
1820Heikki KovalainenLotus-Renault1’18.1153.68220
1924Timo GlockVirgin-Cosworth1’18.5804.14721
2025Jerome d’AmbrosioVirgin-Cosworth1’18.8084.37521
2121Jarno TrulliLotus-Renault1’19.2594.82619
2223Vitantonio LiuzziHRT-Cosworth1’20.1155.68215
2322Narain KarthikeyanHRT-Cosworth1’20.2785.84516
248Nico RosbergMercedes3

Combined practice times

PosDriverCarFP1FP2FP3Total laps
1Fernando AlonsoFerrari1’16.7321’15.1231’14.43384
2Jenson ButtonMcLaren-Mercedes1’17.5341’15.4481’14.99679
3Felipe MassaFerrari1’17.3161’15.7811’15.02488
4Lewis HamiltonMcLaren-Mercedes1’17.3501’15.2281’15.38670
5Sebastian VettelRed Bull-Renault1’16.6191’15.6671’15.24590
6Michael SchumacherMercedes1’18.8051’16.3561’15.31068
7Nico RosbergMercedes1’17.1391’15.32167
8Mark WebberRed Bull-Renault1’16.6421’15.77264
9Jaime AlguersuariToro Rosso-Ferrari1’17.7891’16.61756
10Sebastien BuemiToro Rosso-Ferrari1’19.2341’17.5811’16.73671
11Sergio PerezSauber-Ferrari1’19.7921’17.5411’16.82190
12Paul di RestaForce India-Mercedes1’18.5781’19.0531’16.99059
13Adrian SutilForce India-Mercedes1’21.5481’17.1011’18.06995
14Nick HeidfeldRenault1’18.9281’17.1261’17.88074
15Rubens BarrichelloWilliams-Cosworth1’19.3951’17.5701’17.19676
16Pastor MaldonadoWilliams-Cosworth1’18.5271’17.6331’17.33396
17Vitaly PetrovRenault1’18.7331’17.3371’17.77968
18Kamui KobayashiSauber-Ferrari1’19.7681’17.7061’17.40380
19Heikki KovalainenLotus-Renault1’20.0831’18.2661’18.11593
20Jarno TrulliLotus-Renault1’21.1161’18.4901’19.25985
21Timo GlockVirgin-Cosworth1’21.8151’19.3381’18.58073
22Jerome d’AmbrosioVirgin-Cosworth1’21.7581’19.1851’18.80892
23Daniel RicciardoToro Rosso-Ferrari1’19.46325
24Vitantonio LiuzziHRT-Cosworth1’22.8401’20.11528
25Narain KarthikeyanHRT-Cosworth1’23.8851’22.0661’20.27878

2011 Monaco Grand Prix

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    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...

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    43 comments on “Alonso leads final practice amid crashes”

    1. I ran out of internet allowance with about 5 minutes to go in the session. Could someone please describe Liuzzi’s crash? :P

      By the way, I’ll be missing the GP2 sprint race, WSBR Formula Renault 3.5 race and the Indy 500 thanks to my silly ISP. ;)

      1. From memory, Liuzzi lost it midway through the corner and hit the barrier.

        1. Pretty much the same way Vettel did in the race back in 2009. Lost the read end near the apex, and putted left rear corner into the barrier.

      2. He was at the exit of the turn when the back end of his car stepped out hit the barrier.

      3. Missed it as well due to the vip stream changing channels :( Anyway:

        Liuzzi: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuvdfKLojW0

        Rosberg: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6m2NKdYHxI

        1. thanks for the links Stretch :)

      4. Aw, that’s annoying. Where do you watch GP2 and FR 3.5 online, by the way?

        I’ll be missing watching Indy live too, thanks to forgetting all about it when buying opera tickets months ago :p

      5. Internet…allowance? What’s going on?!

        1. Internet…allowance? What’s going on?!

          My ISP has a download limit before they slow be to 64kbps (which feels like 2kbps).

          1. Ouch. Uncool!

      6. Liuzzi’s crash was a bit like Vettel’s two years ago, only bigger.

    2. Alonso’s looking very good this weekend… hope he can challenge Vettel for the pole/win

      1. He does. ALMOST tempted to stick him on pole for my prediction, I don’t know though. Such a tough choice D:

    3. Please, could anyone describe me Alonso’s lap? ;)

      1. Fast.

        1. Lol, was wondering how one could reply to that question.

          1. He went flat out.

            (Thats as descriptive as it can get) :)

        2. Thanks Ollie:)
          (family guy reference:D)

      2. aprox 55 gear changes were made

    4. mrhelix21 (@)
      28th May 2011, 11:20

      Alonso looking really strong. Predicting this will be hard because we dont know how much/if Red Bull are sandbagging.

      1. Red Bull didnt get a chance to set their good laps because of Liuzzi’s crash.

    5. Alonso doing great so far in Monaco, but Vettel did that lap on soft tyres.

    6. Although alonso looks strong, it seems red bull haven’t set a fast lap on super soft tyres and more over they are not using DRS on those laps. probably their car is already so fast tht if they enable DRS may be end up in barriers due to speed ;). My bet is it will be vettel,alonso and lewis/webber for top 3 positions in qualifying..

    7. Alonso’s first lap on super softs was aborted after a super quick first sector. He did his timed lap in his second lap and the pace continued into the third too. Seems like there is more pace on the Ferrari than that was showed on the track.

      But the RB of Vettel seems fast and could be a straight fight between Alonso, Vettel and Hamilton. If those three can save super sots from being used in Q1 and Q2, then God save the middle runners. They are going to be lapped.

      I quite liking Alonso’s new livery on his helmet. Hope he retains it.

      And Alonso confirming the 6 tenths in his bag with almost an identical gap to Massa. I think Massa is driving to his potential. It is just that Alonso is unreal:)

    8. Good chance we could see the fastest lap of the current configuration of Monaco in practice.

      The record for the current configuration is Kimi Räikkönen’s 1’13.532 from 2006: Monte-Carlo – circuit information

      Times improves by a second from FP3 to Q3 last year, and the red flag at the end of FP3 meant we probably didn’t see the very best the drivers had to offer.

    9. It seems to me that there is a bigger gap here between the first 4 teams and the rest of the pack than previously this season. And also not so massive gaps between the 2 compounds, slightly less than a sec.
      It might be that they all can get away in Q1 and (maybe) also Q2 (Red Bull, Alonso) staying on the soft tires.

    10. Glad to see Nico’s ok. It wasn’t a particularly big smash as far as the monocoque is concerned but he could have so easily hit that dividing wall.

      Didn’t see what happened with Liuzzi due to the BBC making a mess of the red button service, looked pretty bad though.

      I’m kinda hoping Rosberg isn’t ready for qualifying so we can see him do a Webber!

      1. This is the biggest point of interest in the season so far.

        Will “do a Webber” survive 2011 and become part of the sport’s slang?

        Blame Vettel for that.

      2. In Monaco, that’s practically impossible in the Petronas Mercedes GP.

    11. Sound_Of_Madness
      28th May 2011, 11:36

      Should VL fail to set a quali lap, will he make it to the race or it will be the 107% rule in effect?

      1. That’s what I wondered. If his FP3 lap will be counted, will the 107% be of the fastest time in FP3 or Q1?

    12. The Red Bulls were not able to drive a good lap on supersofts, but Vettel was well ahead the others while using softs. So I have to think him as a favourite for the pole. However I can see Alonso making it to the front row ahead of Webber.

    13. Whats up with the Renaults? Very slow.

    14. This cuold be Alonso´s weekend, if we look only at the times set before the super softs, vettel got the best lap 20 minutes after alonso did and monaco´s track improves a lot in that time.
      Cant wait til tomorrow

    15. Alonso is doing well. but Redbull’s records are from prime tyre. They would be the fastest cars again.

    16. keith, any idea if rosberg will attend quali ?

      1. there is a fair bit of damage to the car, let’s hope so

    17. There’s an enormous difference between FP1 and FP3 times, and also between 1st and 24th.

    18. Did Button get his time on softs ?

      1. No, super-softs.

    19. Go Schumi ! Great improvement for the Schumster (he beat NR for the first time in this weekend)

      1. Not difficult under the circumstances. ;)

        HRT may go to the stewards and suggest to them that Liuzzi’s car will be no slower than its sister car, should that qualify within the 107% rule.

    Comments are closed.