This afternoon we saw Nico Rosberg setting the pace in FP2 in Brazil ahead of his team mate and championship rival Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen who was third fastest.
We saw a lot of action on track during the session and the session was red flagged three times due to three different drivers stopping on track. During FP2, we saw Adrian Sutil, Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean going off the track (Raikkonen went off twice) while getting to grips with the new surface on the circuit. All of the drivers were able to continue on during the session.
We also saw Sebastian Vettel struggling with blistering on his tyres on the front and the rear due to the high temperatures at the Interlagos circuit. Due to the temperatures, we saw engineers advising their drivers after setting a lap time to have a “cool down” lap to help the ERS systems cool down.
In the early part of the session, Jean-Eric Vergne was the first driver to stop on track with a suspected power unit issue but this hasn’t been confirmed by the Toro Rosso team as of yet. This then caused the session to be red flagged while Vergne’s car was recovered by the marshals.
Esteban Gutierrez was the second driver to stop on track in the second half of the session. Guiterrez has been suffering with ERS problems during the weekend and he stopped on the back straight of the Interlagos circuit, thereby bringing out the second red flag of the session while his car was recovered.
In the latter stages of the session, Fernando Alonso was the third driver to stop on the circuit after his engine blew up. This then brought out the red flag for the third time in the session while his car was extinguished and then recovered by the marshals. This now could see Alonso taking a penalty for taking an sixth engine for the season, even though this hasn’t been announced by the Ferrari team as of yet.
But it was Rosberg who set the pace in FP2 ahead of Hamilton with a lap time of 1.12.123. Hamilton finished the session in second place 0.2 second behind Rosberg but ahead of Raikkonen who was 0.5 seconds behind the two Mercedes drivers.
Daniel Ricciardo finished the session in fourth place ahead of Valtteri Bottas in fifth place, Felipe Massa in sixth place, Fernando Alonso in eighth place, Daniil Kvyat in ninth place and Sebastian Vettel who rounds off the top ten finishers of the session.
Kevin Magnussen ended the session in eleventh place ahead of the Lotus drivers of Pastor Maldonado and Romain Grosjean in twelfth and thirteenth places. Nico Hulkenberg finished the session in fourteenth place ahead of Esteban Guiterrez in fifteenth place who had to stop his session early due to his ERS system failing in his Sauber.
As we head into the latter stages of the grid, Adrian Sutil ended the session in fifteenth place ahead of Jenson Button in a disappointing sixteenth place and Jean-Eric Vergne in seventeenth who stopped on track in the early stages of the session. Also, Sergio Perez did not take part in the session due to his car still needing to be repaired from Daniel Juncadella’s crash in FP1 earlier today.
