Rosberg On Top In Free Practice Two

Nov 27, 2015
2 min read

As the sun sets on the Yas Marina circuit and the artficial lights take over, all of the drivers were eager to take their cars out for another spin under the night sky.

Sebastian Vettel was the first man out on track and timed his exit perfectly with ther start of the session. The green light came on as he approached it

and seemlessly went on to the track. On his way around the track Vettel claimed he forgot something over the radio, he then preceded to sing happy birthday to his race engineer. Quite a nice touch.

Within twenty minutes of the session starting Kimi Raikkonen was the first man onto the super soft tyre; Vettel then followed suit. This started a chain reaction meaning everyone else decided to get onto the faster rubber for the evening's running. Race simulations were the order of the session as the conditions would be very similar to that of the race start on Sunday.

As track temperatures dropped more mistakes were being made by the drivers with out braking themselves and sliding around. At the halfway point of the session Hamilton was the fastest of the session but Ferrari again were the first teams to attempt something new in the session qualifying practice.

After the fast runs were over; it was Nico Rosberg was the fastest of the session on a 1:41:983 beating Lewis Hamilton by just over a tenth. It's clear there isn't much to choose from between the Mercedes drivers.

With the session wearing on, teams turned their attention to race pace on the supersoft tyre.

With half hour left of the session Carlos Sainz stopped on the inside of track at turn five after what appeared to be power unit issues, luckily where he pulled off was right out of the danger zone and caused no disruption to the session.

In the last fifteen minutes Sergio Perez was complaining of some braking issues and as he pulled into his pitbox it was clear to see that his rear left brake were on fire. Despite the flames being quickly extinguished as the car was wheeled back in the garage, whilst mechanics were keeping fans on the overheated brake disintergrating all over the garage floor. It's quite a shame as he managed to be third fastest in the session.

Lots of work will be needed overnight to get to the bottom of that issue and repair that for the next practice session on Saturday morning.

Free Practice Two Top Ten

1st: Rosberg (Mercedes) 1:41:983

2nd: Hamilton (Mercedes) +0.138

3rd: Perez (Force India) + 0.627

4th: Ricciardo (Red Bull) + 0.664

5th: Vettel (Ferrari) + 0.734

6th: Kyvat (Red Bull) + 0.815

7th: Raikkonen (Ferrari) +0.866

8th: Hulkenberg (Force India) +0.945

9th: Alonso (McLaren) + 0.972

10th: Maldonado (Lotus) +1.448