The rain remained at the Hockenheimring in the second hour-and-a-half of practice and this time it was even heavier.
Only Bruno Senna ventured out in the first quarter of an hour to check over his repaired car following Valtteri Bottas’s crash at the end of first practice.
As the rain eased and began to stop the cars filtered out onto the track, led by Jean-Eric Vergne who ran wide at turn eight on the soaked track as he set his first lap.
The track quickly filled up with the Ferrari and McLaren drivers among the last to join in. As the surface water began to lift the lap times fell quickly. The Ferrari pair were consistently among the quickest with Romain Grosjean regularly taking over at the top of the times as well.
The track passed the crossover point to intermediate tyres and drivers were beginning to consider slicks when the rain returned. At the same time race control were advising drivers they could use DRS again, fresh rain sent the cars back to the pits and DRS was swiftly deactivated again.
Pastor Maldonado had just set the fastest time before the conditions worsened, ahead of home drivers Nico Rosberg and Sebastian Vettel.
A few drivers returns to the track for the final minutes of practice but two of them hit trouble. Daniel Ricciardo understeered off at the turn 13 hairpin in the Motodrom and came to a stop in the gravel trap without hitting anything.
But Michael Schumacher was not so fortunate when he lost control of his Mercedes one corner earlier. The W03 sustained front and rear damage as he bounced off the barriers. The session was red-flagged with four minutes remaining and not restarted.
2012 German Grand Prix
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Image © Pirelli/LAT
Julian (@julian)
20th July 2012, 15:09
You have to feel sorry for the teams. They’ve brought some nifty upgrades to test this gp and the last and all it’s done is rain. Poor buggers.
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
20th July 2012, 16:11
Have Pirelli found a way to control the weather? Everywhere they take these new hard tyres, it rains.
Eggry (@eggry)
20th July 2012, 15:26
Another rainy FP and dry race weekend. Updates might not be able to switched on. Another set up gamble.
Maksutov (@maksutov)
20th July 2012, 15:28
Oh… well, bad luck
Younger Hamii (@younger-hamii)
20th July 2012, 16:09
Something begins to tell me that almost on every occasion in recent seasons that McLaren have brought a ‘major’ upgrade that it’s rained in Friday FP of the race weekend they’ve introduced it for.
BasCB (@bascb)
20th July 2012, 18:34
it sure is like that for the second year running now, and wasn’t 2009 a bit like that, when they could not run their update in Silverstone?
OmarR-Pepper (@)
20th July 2012, 16:40
Maldonado on pole… then in the refuel he gets mixed with the pack and crashes absurdly with another driver. And finally he states the other driver is a crybaby, while FIA sets another fine PDVSA can easily pay.
James (@jamesf1)
20th July 2012, 18:20
On that basis, he has nothing to worry about then, as he’ll be running with a car full of fuel come race day.
He wont get pole, cant read much into Friday practice at the best of times, let alone when it hammers it down with rain!
AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner)
20th July 2012, 17:17
Hope Schumacher’s moment doesn’t hinder him for the rest of the weekend.
Frustrating that we can’t properly evaluate upgrades but tomorrow should be better for the weather.
alexf1man (@alexf1man)
20th July 2012, 17:43
Since Pirelli came into F1 as the sole tyre supplier, both in 2011 and 2012 the British GP marks the start of a long period of wet races…
xjr15jaaag (@xjr15jaaag)
20th July 2012, 20:50
I am hoping this year for the first wet Singapore Grand Prix!!!!
TED BELL
21st July 2012, 4:12
These wet races continue to ruin the potential of the better teams, because of which 2012 will be remembered as the season of great parody but in reality a season of some teams getting simply lucky.
The combination of DRS, Pirelli Tires and far too many wet sessions have made this season one of the least competitive seasons in the last twenty years. How boring, I miss the Schumacher days when the Ferrari kicked everybodys ass. Dominate and Crush, that is how the competition should be handled. Real race fans feel this way don’t they??