Italian GP: Vettel edges out Hamilton in second practice

RichardsF1    F1 2011, Formula 1, Results    

Sebastian Vettel has edged out McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton for top honours in the second practice session for the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, although the Red Bull Racing driver was unable to better the fastest lap time posted by Hamilton in the morning’s first practice session.

After a quiet morning’s running, Vettel clocked a total of 34 laps around the five-kilometre circuit, finishing with a session-topping lap-time of 1:24.010, to outpace Hamilton by just three-hundredths of a second.

Hamilton had looked set to take top honours on his final flying lap, but the McLaren driver hit traffic on his final flying lap and had to settle for second-fastest. The pair finished ahead of Michael Schumacher, whose Mercedes GP showed excellent pace with the German clocking the third-fastest time in the session.

The Ferraris of Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso showed improved pace on the ever-warming track surface with the fourth- and fifth-fastest times, while Mark Webber was sixth-fastest, just four-hundredths of a second quicker than Jenson Button’s McLaren.

The session’s one major incident occurred when Sébastien Buemi ran wide at Parabolica, which sent his Toro Rosso skating across the kitty litter and crashing heavily into the tyre barriers. The Swiss driver’s car was too damaged for him to continue.

The other runner to suffer a lack of mileage was Daniel Ricciardo, who HRT was cooped up in the team garages for much of the 90-minute session while various technical gremlins were being tended to. The Australian finished slowest overall, although still improved his lap-time from the morning session by close to two seconds.

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2011 Italian Grand Prix – Free Practice 2 Session Times:

	Driver		Team	Time	Laps
1.	Sebastian Vettel		Red Bull Renault RB7	1:24.010	37
2.	Lewis Hamilton		McLaren Mercedes MP4-26	+ 0.036	21
3.	Michael Schumacher		Mercedes GP W02	+ 0.337	39
4.	Felipe Massa		Ferrari F150° Italia	+ 0.356	33
5.	Fernando Alonso		Ferrari F150° Italia	+ 0.423	31
6.	Mark Webber		Red Bull Renault RB7	+ 0.458	32
7.	Jenson Button		McLaren Mercedes MP4-26	+ 0.498	30
8.	Sergio Pérez		Sauber Ferrari C30	+ 1.087	39
9.	Kamui Kobayashi		Sauber Ferrari C30	+ 1.172	37
10.	Bruno Senna		Renault R31	+ 1.315	38
11.	Vitaly Petrov		Renault R31	+ 1.440	31
12.	Adrian Sutil		Force India Mercedes VJM04	+ 1.486	39
13.	Paul di Resta		Force India Mercedes VJM04	+ 1.673	37
14.	Jaime Alguersuari		Toro Rosso Ferrari STR6	+ 1.748	29
15.	Rubens Barrichello		Williams Cosworth FW33	+ 2.192	36
16.	Pastor Maldonado		Williams Cosworth FW33	+ 2.343	40
17.	Sébastien Buemi		Toro Rosso Ferrari STR6	+ 4.337	5
18.	Jarno Trulli		Lotus Renault T128	+ 4.549	32
19.	Heikki Kovalainen		Lotus Renault T128	+ 4.595	32
20.	Timo Glock		Virgin Racing Cosworth MVR-02	+ 4.794	25
21.	Vitantonio Liuzzi		HRT F1 Cosworth F111	+ 5.172	34
22.	Nico Rosberg		Mercedes GP W02	+ 5.174	29
23.	Jérôme d’Ambrosio		Virgin Racing Cosworth MVR-02	+ 5.612	34
24.	Daniel Ricciardo		HRT F1 Cosworth F111	+ 5.831	7

[Image via Formula1.com, LAT]