Rosberg Fastest in Free Practice 2 for 2014 Brazil Grand Prix

Nico Rosberg was fastest in a much interrupted second practice session ahead of Sundays Brazilian Grand Prix at Interlagos.  Hamilton finished the session in second place, although during the session he said he hadn’t managed to hook up a full lap.

As expected, the Mercedes duo dominated the session with Rosberg’s fastest time of 1:12.123.  Hamilton was around 6/10 of a second behind him.  Raikkonen showed decent pace to grab the third fastest time on a fast run during the middle part of the session.

For most teams, this practice involved longer runs as race simulation, so the frequent stops were frustrating.

Alonso suffered a fairly spectacular blow up of his power unit in the middle of the session, but Ferrari tweeted that it was an older unit that already had a lot of miles on it, and changing it won’t require a penalty:

#FerrariBRAGP @alo_oficial's broken power unit had a lot of kilometers. There will be no penalty for him

— Scuderia Ferrari (@InsideFerrari) November 7, 2014

Departing Sauber F1 driver Esteban Gutierrez also suffered a breakdown when his car cruised to a stop just past the pits, and Jean-Eric Vergne who is still without a drive for next season suffered a lost of power after just 11 minutes.

Sergio Perez didn’t run at all in the session following on from Daniel Juncadella’s crash during FP1, although Jenson Button managed a lot more running over the course of the 90 minute practice, although his pace was a long way off team mate Kevin Magnussen, and he finished the session down in  place.

Several teams found that the tyre wear on the newly resurfaced Interlagos track was higher than expected, with the soft lasting just 10 laps or so before needing to be replaced.  That’s likely to have a big impact on Sunday’s race if it’s run under dry conditions, although the forecast so far still suggests a wet race is very likely.

2014 Brazil GP Free Practice 2 Results

1. Rosberg (Mercedes)
2. Hamilton (Mercedes)
3. Raikkonen (Ferrari)
4. Ricciardo (Red Bull)
5. Bottas (Williams)
6. Massa (Williams)
7. Alonso (Ferrari)
8. Kvyat (Toro Rosso)
9. Vettel (Red Bull)
10. Magnussen (McLaren)
11. Maldonado (Lotus)
12. Grosjean (Lotus)
13. Hulkenberg (Force India)
14. Gutierrez (Sauber)
15. Sutil (Sauber)
16. Button (McLaren)
17. Vergne (Toro Rosso)
18. Perez (Force India) *No Time Set*