Red Bull finished Friday's practice at Monza in the top two spots, continuing their strong pace and straight-line dominance shown during the last round at Spa. Championship leader Sebastian Vettel took the top time in FP2 (1:24.453) after 39 laps, followed 0.623 seconds back by teammate Mark Webber (1:25.076).
Lotus drivers Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean tied for the third-fastest time, clocking in at 1:25.116. Raikkonen was using the new, long-wheelbase E21 car designed specifically for the Italian circuit, while Grosjean drove the normal-spec car. Following the second session, the team confirmed they will not be using the car for the remainder of the weekend after it failed to produce the expected results.
“We were a little surprised to be third fastest, but we’re still quite far away from the fastest cars,” Raikkonen said. “There are still some areas for improvement so hopefully we can find more speed for tomorrow.”
Ferrari's Fernando Alonso, who sits second in the championship standings, took the fifth spot with a 1:25.330, while his teammate Felipe Massa, rumoured to be fighting for his F1 career, finished the day back in eighth place with a best time of 1:25.519. Splitting the two Ferraris were the Mercedes duo of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, in sixth and seventh, respectively.
Going into qualifying tomorrow, Vettel expects to be challenged for the top spot, although the Adrian Newey-designed RB9 has shown itself considerably stronger in straight-line speed, which is crucial at Monza.
“It will be very tight this weekend as we saw in the first practice,” Vettel said. “It will be close tomorrow in qualifying with quite a few cars separated by only a few hundredths of a second. There are a few things we still need to do to optimize the car, as there are two or three corners where we are sliding more than we would like. It’s positive today, but it’s only a Friday.”
Qualifying starts tomorrow at 7:55 a.m. (EST) on TSN, with a re-broadcast on TSN2 at 11 p.m.
PRACTICE 2 RESULTS
