Saturday 28 May 2011

Alonso fastest again in Saturday practice

Fernando Alonso set the fastest time in Saturday practice for the Monaco Grand Prix with a time of 1:14.433. He was more than half a second faster than Jenson Button in second. Behind Button it was a lot tighter with five additional drivers within half a second of Button. Behind these seven cars there was more than a second down to the 8th fastest car; Jaime Alguersuari in 8th. The top seven included all the drivers from Ferrari, McLaren, Red Bull and Mercedes, bar Nico Rosberg who had a crash early in the session and didn't set a time. Rosberg made heavy contact with the barriers under braking for the chicane after the tunnel, and damaged his car so much that he may very well miss out on qualifying. Rosberg's crash led to a red flag that lasted for 14 minutes in the 60 minute session.

There was another red flag 6 minutes before the end when Tonio Liuzzi lost the back end of his car in the middle of the first corner, smashing it into the barrier and completely destroying the back of his car. With only two hours before qualifying it is unlikely that he will take part in it. He could also face exclusion from the race as he's times in earlier sessions have been right at the edge of the 107% rule

The track went green again two minutes before the end of the session. Sadly this was not enough time for all the cars to get a good go with the super soft tyre. While most of the cars had done a few runs on the quicker tyre before the red flag, a lot of teams were stretching it for the very last minutes, and were caught out by the red flag. This included the two Red Bull drivers. Sebastian Vettel set his fastest time on the slower soft tyre, while Webber slightly improved on the super soft in the last seconds of the session. The super soft tyre is believed to be about a second faster than the soft tyre, meaning it could be a really good fight for pole between Ferrari and Red Bull, and possibly also McLaren.

Qualifying starts at 2 pm. local time, or at noon GMT.

Full results:

01. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m14.433s 18 laps
02. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1m14.996s + 0.563s 17 laps
03. Felipe Massa Ferrari 1m15.024s + 0.591s 19 laps
04. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m15.245s + 0.812s 19 laps
05. Michael Schumacher Mercedes 1m15.310s + 0.877s 21 laps
06. Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1m15.386s + 0.953s 14 laps
07. Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 1m15.529s + 1.096s 19 laps
08. Jaime Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m16.617s + 2.184s 13 laps
09. Sebastien Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m16.736s + 2.303s 15 laps
10. Sergio Perez Sauber-Ferrari 1m16.821s + 2.388s 19 laps
11. Paul di Resta Force India-Mercedes 1m16.990s + 2.557s 20 laps
12. Rubens Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 1m17.196s + 2.763s 13 laps
13. Pastor Maldonado Williams-Cosworth 1m17.333s + 2.900s 17 laps
14. Kamui Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 1m17.403s + 2.970s 18 laps
15. Vitaly Petrov Renault 1m17.779s + 3.346s 17 laps
16. Nick Heidfeld Renault 1m17.880s + 3.447s 17 laps
17. Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1m18.069s + 3.636s 17 laps
18. Heikki Kovalainen Lotus-Renault 1m18.115s + 3.682s 20 laps
19. Timo Glock Virgin-Cosworth 1m18.580s + 4.147s 21 laps
20. Jerome D'Ambrosio Virgin-Cosworth 1m18.808s + 4.375s 21 laps
21. Jarno Trulli Lotus-Renault 1m19.259s + 4.826s 19 laps
22. Tonio Liuzzi HRT-Cosworth 1m20.115s + 5.682s 15 laps
23. Narain Karthikeyan HRT-Cosworth 1m20.278s + 5.845s 16 laps
24. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 3 laps

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