Grosjean and Kobayashi tied at the top in Mugello

2012 F1 testing

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Two drivers shared the fastest time in the second day of testing at Mugello.

Romain Grosjean and Kamui Kobayashi both set laps of 1’21.603 – identical to within one-thousandth of a second.

Grosjean was first to set the time, crossing the line early on the session. Kobayashi matched his effort when he took to the track on soft tyres in the final ten minutes of running.

Earlier on Kobayashi had caused a red flag when he stopped on track in his Sauber. Paul di Resta had more serious problems in his Force India. An hydraulic glitch confined him to the pits for most of the say, only emerging to set a time in the final hour of running.

They weren’t the only team to hit trouble. McLaren test driver Gary Paffet did 59 laps before stopping with a gearbox problem.

A power steering glitch held up Marussia as they split their running between Charles Pic and Timo Glock.

Red Bull also juggled two drivers, Mark Webber running in the morning at Sebastian Vettel in the afternoon. The pair were third and fourth fastest.

Sister team Toro Rosso switched between Jean-Eric Vergne and Daniel Ricciardo halfway through the day.

Michael Schumacher had a busy day for Mercedes, logging 144 laps.

The session began on a damp track and drivers completed their first laps on intermediate tyres. But they quickly switched to slicks as the surface dried out.

DriverCarBest timeLapsDifference
1Romain GrosjeanLotus-Renault E201’21.60397
2Kamui KobayashiSauber-Ferrari C311’21.603870.000
3Sebastian VettelRed Bull-Renault RB81’21.825640.222
4Mark WebberRed Bull-Renault RB81’21.997540.394
5Felipe MassaFerrari F20121’22.2571060.654
6Jean-Eric VergneToro Rosso-Ferrari STR71’22.422650.819
7Daniel RicciardoToro Rosso-Ferrari STR71’22.588220.985
8Michael SchumacherMercedes W031’23.4041441.801
9Charles PicMarussia-Cosworth MR011’23.982462.379
10Vitaly PetrovCaterham-Renault CT011’24.3121122.709
11Gary PaffettMcLaren-Mercedes MP4-271’24.480592.877
12Timo GlockMarussia-Cosworth MR011’24.499372.896
13Paul di RestaForce India-Mercedes VJM051’24.749143.146
14Bruno SennaWilliams-Renault FW341’24.8421003.239

2012 F1 season


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Image © Lotus F1 Team/LAT

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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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30 comments on “Grosjean and Kobayashi tied at the top in Mugello”

  1. Quite an appropriate result given today’s On This Day:

    https://www.racefans.net/2012/05/02/f1-fanatic-roundup-25/#onthisday

    1. Indeed @keithcollantine Setting equal times boggles the mind slightly, but given how extremely competitive F1 cars are, teams like Sauber and Lotus will be operating within .5s between them (crude guess) so it then becomes less surprising, but no less fascinating.

      1. jsw11984 (@jarred-walmsley)
        2nd May 2012, 22:18

        Its more than that @andrewtanner its actually .0005s (crude guess between them as they both set 1’21.603 so the difference must be in the hundred thousandths of a second. Which is an incredibly small difference, however I would like to point out that Grosjean’s time is more impressive as he set it earlier in the session.

        1. @jarred-walmsley I would think it is in a race or qualifying session with fuel loads etc…but in practice it could have been down to anything I guess. Though he will still occupy the top spot by virtue of setting it first.

  2. It’s always tricky trying to make conclusions from testing, but Lotus do seem to show some genuine pace.

    Also shocking that Mclaren is putting in such few laps. It seems like the whole Mclaren garage seem to be sulking a little bit, as they didn’t seem too keen on the Mugello test.

    1. @todfod Turns out Paffett had a gearbox problem – just updated the article.

  3. Looks like Schumacher is reliving the heyday of endless testing today. A massive 144 laps for him, let us hope they learnt a lot and keep within range of the top cars the whole year.

    1. @bascb I was going to use the phrase ‘a gross of laps’, but it sounded a bit archaic!

      1. LOL, fits the man then, doesn’t it @keithcollantine, so a gross of laps it is!

    2. @bascb I hope so. I’m still darn nervous about those pesky tyres of theirs!

  4. The Red Bull is looking quick, as is the Lotus. There is some speculation as to who is the quickest obviously as we don’t know what each team’s running in terms of fuel loads etc. and obviously Mclaren isn’t running its racing drivers, so it remains to be seen who will turn up at Spain fastest.
    As for Ferrari, who knows how quick they are relative to the competition; I doubt highly they’ll be challenging for pole any time soon, but if they can cut the deficit to within say 4tenths I think Alonso may still be in the running.
    Does anyone know if any of the teams have tried to imitate Mercedes’ double DRS or a similar system yet?

  5. Adam (@akitch1275)
    2nd May 2012, 18:38

    What tire set was Grosjean using? Would be interesting if he was on a harder compound.

    1. Yes, he was on the medium compound tyre.

    2. I’d love to know not only his tyre sets but how many laps he managed to put on those tyres and graph showing his performance from first lap ’til the last lap on the same set of tyres, that’s the kind of info that matters in tests like this, particularly in these times of über important tyres…

  6. Ferrari were running the old car today (Bahrain configuration) to compare it with the new car tomorrow which will contain some new updates
    the interesting thing is that Ferrari’s original version about the new updates suggest that they will bring them at the last moment in Barcelona (pre-tactic) but massa’s statement after the test deny this version he said that they weren’t ready and the new components will be available only this night & only Fernando will test them tomorrow

    1. They spent 2 entire days just running the old car? How do they expect to gain any ground on rival teams at this rate?

      1. Well they will gain ground on Mclaren that are going backwards.

        1. @bbt – it isn’t strictly true that Mclaren are going backwards, they had gearbox trouble which gave them limited running at one of the onlydry spells thus far. I’m not disagreeing that they may be unable to make any significant improvements however when the likes of Red Bull & Lotus appear to be improving noticeably.
          As for Ferrari, to have any chance of keeping Alonso in title contention (Massa I believe just isn’t fast enough to bring home the points, he has after all only scored 2 and is currently 17th in the standings) they need to be within at the very most 4 tenths of the front runners, which means they will need a significant upgrade to bring to Catalunya.
          I think we may well see the first win under the team name Lotus since I believe 1986.

          1. I think we may well see the first win under the team name Lotus since I believe 1986.

            @vettel1, it was 1987 actually, at Detroit :)

          2. @scuderiavincerno – I knew it was detroit but coyuldnt remeber the year, thanks for that;)

          3. * @scuderiavincero – I knew it was Detroit but I wasn’t sure if it was ’86 or ’87, so thanks for that;)

          4. @vettel1 the pleasure’s mine :)

  7. I know it’s only testing, but it’s nice to see Team Enstone on the top of the timesheets. :)

  8. Every single post on a testing report;

    “It is impossible to extrapolate information from testing. Now, I will extrapolate information from testing”

  9. An hydraulic glitch confined him to the pits for most of the say, only emerging to set a time in the final hour of running.

    should that read
    An hydraulic glitch confined him to the pits for most of the say, only emerging to set a time in the final hour of running.?

    1. You mean

      …most of the day…

      I assume?

  10. We should have plenty of new detail pictures from all teams on day 3 :)

  11. I’m curious if there would have been any benefit to McLaren getting Paffet to drive Hamilton’s gearbox (changed in China) to failure..? Probably not, but I’m kinda more curious if that’s even legal?

    1. I think in testing you can use any part you wish and they don’t count as “race” gearboxes… 8)

      1. I recall Keith saying somewhere that teams have a separate allocation of engines for testing. I imagine the same would apply to gearboxes. The FIA would no doubt be very upset if teams deliberately broke parts in testing to escape a penalty in the race.

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