Sebastian Vettel narrowly put Ferrari on top in the second practice session but suffered his second gearbox fault of the day soon afterwards.
Vettel, who only did four laps in this morning’s practice session, beat Nico Rosberg to the top time by 11 thousandths of a second. However with just over 20 minutes remaining he was told to return to the pits as his car had lost gearbox oil.
Kimi Raikkonen made it two Ferraris in the top three as championship leader Lewis Hamilton struggled to produce a flying lap on the super-soft tyres. After several errors Hamilton’s best time left him fifth, behind the Lotus of Pastor Maldonado. The Lotus driver went off at turn three shortly before the end of the session.
The top ten was heavily populated with Mercedes-powered cars. The second Lotus of Romain Grosjean was seventh and both Force Indias were inside as well. However the two Williams cars were well down the order, which is not unusual for them on a Friday.
Max Verstappen was the quickest Renault-powered runner in eighth place, but reported problems with his tyre performance dropping off on more than one occasion.
It was another poor session for McLaren as both their drivers pulled into the pits and stopped running long before the chequered flag came out.
| Pos. | No. | Driver | Car | Best lap | Gap | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 5 | Sebastian Vettel | Ferrari | 1’09.600 | 28 | |
| 2 | 6 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 1’09.611 | 0.011 | 50 |
| 3 | 7 | Kimi Raikkonen | Ferrari | 1’09.860 | 0.260 | 41 |
| 4 | 13 | Pastor Maldonado | Lotus-Mercedes | 1’09.914 | 0.314 | 44 |
| 5 | 44 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 1’10.137 | 0.537 | 49 |
| 6 | 27 | Nico Hulkenberg | Force India-Mercedes | 1’10.160 | 0.560 | 49 |
| 7 | 8 | Romain Grosjean | Lotus-Mercedes | 1’10.267 | 0.667 | 38 |
| 8 | 33 | Max Verstappen | Toro Rosso-Renault | 1’10.356 | 0.756 | 48 |
| 9 | 12 | Felipe Nasr | Sauber-Ferrari | 1’10.495 | 0.895 | 39 |
| 10 | 11 | Sergio Perez | Force India-Mercedes | 1’10.585 | 0.985 | 46 |
| 11 | 55 | Carlos Sainz Jnr | Toro Rosso-Renault | 1’10.631 | 1.031 | 50 |
| 12 | 26 | Daniil Kvyat | Red Bull-Renault | 1’10.686 | 1.086 | 48 |
| 13 | 9 | Marcus Ericsson | Sauber-Ferrari | 1’10.744 | 1.144 | 40 |
| 14 | 77 | Valtteri Bottas | Williams-Mercedes | 1’10.746 | 1.146 | 34 |
| 15 | 19 | Felipe Massa | Williams-Mercedes | 1’11.011 | 1.411 | 42 |
| 16 | 14 | Fernando Alonso | McLaren-Honda | 1’11.517 | 1.917 | 17 |
| 17 | 3 | Daniel Ricciardo | Red Bull-Renault | 1’11.676 | 2.076 | 38 |
| 18 | 22 | Jenson Button | McLaren-Honda | 1’11.919 | 2.319 | 17 |
| 19 | 28 | Will Stevens | Manor-Ferrari | 1’12.522 | 2.922 | 34 |
| 20 | 98 | Roberto Merhi | Manor-Ferrari | 1’13.094 | 3.494 | 34 |
Second practice visual gaps
Sebastian Vettel – 1’09.600
+0.011 Nico Rosberg – 1’09.611
+0.260 Kimi Raikkonen – 1’09.860
+0.314 Pastor Maldonado – 1’09.914
+0.537 Lewis Hamilton – 1’10.137
+0.560 Nico Hulkenberg – 1’10.160
+0.667 Romain Grosjean – 1’10.267
+0.756 Max Verstappen – 1’10.356
+0.895 Felipe Nasr – 1’10.495
+0.985 Sergio Perez – 1’10.585
+1.031 Carlos Sainz Jnr – 1’10.631
+1.086 Daniil Kvyat – 1’10.686
+1.144 Marcus Ericsson – 1’10.744
+1.146 Valtteri Bottas – 1’10.746
+1.411 Felipe Massa – 1’11.011
+1.917 Fernando Alonso – 1’11.517
+2.076 Daniel Ricciardo – 1’11.676
+2.922 Will Stevens – 1’12.522
+3.494 Roberto Merhi – 1’13.094
Malik (@)
19th June 2015, 14:32
I thought that Vettel waved farewell to gremlins when he left RedBull, but it seems that the gremlins love him sooooooooooooo much :(
Ian Bond (@ianbond001)
19th June 2015, 14:43
better on Friday than Saturday or Sunday.
Lance (@lancelot)
19th June 2015, 14:41
So basically Vettel missed FP1, did no long heavy-fuel runs on either tyre, and had a technical problem in each practice session. This doesn’t look good.
PorscheF1 (@xtwl)
19th June 2015, 14:44
@lancelot – Tomorrow pole and the win on Sunday. Don’t think it’s possible though.
Scribe
19th June 2015, 15:52
And champion by Abu Dhabi!
Elected Pope by the end of next year!
Or none of those things!
petebaldwin (@)
19th June 2015, 19:00
…and he still put in the fastest lap. Fair play.
eric
19th June 2015, 19:47
So he missed 2 hours of running, but still put in the fastest lap. Respect.
Andy
19th June 2015, 20:11
That assumes that all the top teams are trying to go as fast as they can on Friday. Not necessarily the case. Otherwise you would say that Williams are always in trouble on Fridays.
eric
19th June 2015, 23:50
Of course that’s not the case, especially for Williams. And Mercedes always have extra for qualifying, and now maybe even for the race itself. But guy did half the number of laps his teammate did, one third of Rosberg, then quickly caught up and did even better than Mercs. Mercedes may not be at its highest power at FP, but drivers are working on their laps and trying to get into the rhythm with good lap times.
Also, this must have put a damper on setup changes and obviously effected supersoft long runs.
pastaman (@)
19th June 2015, 14:44
Good job Ferrari, but subtract 2 seconds from Merc’s fastest practice pace and you have their actual qualifying pace tomorrow.
Samhainhell (@samhainhell)
20th June 2015, 11:23
It usually goes like that..
Every single weekend they expet something new and closer from Ferrari or possibly Williams, because of FP and then Mercs just trolls everyone with their Q times haha..
gilles (@gilles)
19th June 2015, 14:45
Loving this visual gaps graph.
matt90 (@matt90)
19th June 2015, 15:03
I’d perhaps colour the lines for teams like with a lot of the graphical data to slightly improve it. The trouble is they might need to be a bit thicker, which could make it look a little clunky.
Newfangled (@newfangled)
19th June 2015, 21:57
Yes, I too admire the idea, but agree that colouring the lines according to team could aid identification.
@HoHum (@hohum)
20th June 2015, 0:50
@matt90, maybe you haven’t discovered the cursor highlighting yet, I just did for the first time purely by accident, I was just scrolling down the page and Alonso and his line turned blue, moved my mouse and voila.
matt90 (@matt90)
20th June 2015, 9:58
@hohum Hovering over makes the line blue, but that isn’t really the same as having team mates colour coded. Plus, when one line is highlighted it completely blanks out several nearby lines.
Luke (@lukes)
19th June 2015, 16:53
Loving it too! perhaps add a seconds scale across the bottom from 0-4 so you can see how far behind fastest each is without having to do the maths.
Luke (@lukes)
19th June 2015, 16:55
Ok so you don’t have to do the maths just roll over each neat. Still worth adding the scale though.
Willem Cecchi (@)
19th June 2015, 15:07
Stevens putting pressure on McLaren.
Stephen Crowsen (@drycrust)
19th June 2015, 19:50
Hopefully both Manor drivers are able to take the fight to McLaren.
Mijail
19th June 2015, 20:05
I cant start to understand how McLaren got ir so wrong. Seems to me that there is something fundamentally wrong with the PU and i dont belive they will be able to fix it anytime soon. No wonder why they dont have a main sponsor specially when they are trying to charge a fee like theyre a top team.
Mad Eric (@mad-eric)
19th June 2015, 20:28
My first good laugh of the day.
Unfortunately it’s no laughing matter!
vtf
19th June 2015, 23:51
Button putting pressure on Ricciardo.
Samhainhell (@samhainhell)
20th June 2015, 11:21
Is it me or Manor is a little bit better?
Probably because lap is shorter tho :/
Eric Morman (@lethalnz)
19th June 2015, 15:10
1 09,600 Vet Mas was in the 1 08,??? something last year so expect more to come yet.
maybe the tires are a bit cold still and they are having a problem getting temp into them,
Ian Bond (@ianbond001)
19th June 2015, 16:43
yeah, his 1:09.6 is two seconds slower than my pole time prediction; plenty of room for improvement; the colder weather may play a part too.
Ivan B (@njoydesign)
19th June 2015, 17:08
@lethalnz
Massa did 1.09.5xx in that session last year and took the pole with 1:08.7xx