Posted on 13th May 2016
In the second practice session in Barcelona, Nico Rosberg set the pace ahead of Ferrari Kimi Raikkonen and Lewis Hamilton; with the latter having a terrible time trying to get a clean and fast lap during the session.
In the first ten minutes of FP2, Renault driver Jolyon Palmer hasn't had the best start to his weekend after missing out on FP1 due to Esteban Ocon taking his place but then he also suffered a left rear puncture after the tyre burst going down the home straight at 190mph and into Turn 1.
With this failure, Palmer realised what was happening, brought the car to a stand-still which then brought out the Virtual Safety Car and then red flagged the session in order to recover the Renault RS16 safely.
When Palmer's Renault was safely recovered and the session being allowed to restart; we saw the drivers pushing the limits and fine tuning their cars ready for tomorrow and even saw Palmer returning onto the circuit to do a few more laps.
With Raikkonen achieving second place in the session will help the team prepare for qualifying and the race, there was a scare for the Scuderia team.
Raikkonen had to pit 40 minutes into the session with a fuel system issue, which was rectified in time for him to return to the track before the end of the session.
But it was Nico Rosberg who was fastest with a lap time of 1.23.922 ahead of his team mate Kimi Raikkonen in second place who was 0.254 seconds behind him and ahead of Lewis Hamilton in third place who was 0.719 seconds behind Rosberg.
Sebastian Vettel finished the session in fourth place ahead of Carlos Sainz Jr in an impressive fifth place, Daniel Ricciardo in sixth place, Fernando Alonso in seventh place, Max Verstappen in eighth place, Sergio Perez in ninth place and Nico Hulkenberg who rounded off the top ten finishers.
Valtteri Bottas ended the session in eleventh place ahead of Jenson Button in twelfth place, Romain Grosjean in thirteenth place, Daniil Kvyat in fourteenth place and Daniil Kvyat in fifteenth place.
As we head into the latter stages of the grid, Felipe Massa ended the session in sixteenth place ahead of Jolyon Palmer in seventeenth place, Pascal Wehrlein in eighteenth place, Rio Haryanto in nineteenth place, Felipe Nasr in twentieth place, Esteban Gutierrez in twenty-first place who had electrical issues and Marcus Ericsson in twenty-second place.
The classification of FP2 for the Spanish GP is as follows:-
1.Nico Rosberg, Mercedes, 1.23.922
2.Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, 0.138s
3.Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, 0.719s
4.Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari, 1.095s
5.Carlos Sainz Jr, Toro Rosso, 1.209s
6.Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull-TAG Heuer, 1.272s
7.Fernando Alonso, McLaren-Honda, 1.420s
8.Max Verstappen, Red-Bull-TAG Heuer, 1.453s
9.Sergio Perez, Force India-Mercedes, 1.515s
10.Nico Hulkenberg, Force India-Mercedes, 1.531s
11.Valtteri Bottas, Williams-Mercedes, 1.786s
12.Jenson Button, McLaren-Honda, 1.971s
13.Romain Grosjean, Haas Ferrari, 1.977s
14.Kevin Magnussen, Renault, 2.322s
15.Daniil Kvyat, Toro Rosso, 2.453s
16.Felipe Massa, Williams-Mercedes, 2.569s
17.Jolyon Palmer, Renault, 2.848s
18.Pascal Wehrlein, MRT Racing, 3.038s
19.Rio Haryanto, MRT Racing, 3.330s
20.Felipe Nasr, Sauber-Ferrari, 3.890s
21.Esteban Gutierrez, Haas Ferrari, 4.283s
22.Marcus Ericsson, Sauber-Ferrari, 4.579s
Sarah Jones- @jonesy_laaa
