Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg finished on top of the time sheets in the second practice session for the Brazilian Grand Prix.
Rosberg finished the session 0.213s ahead of his team mate Lewis Hamilton with a 1:12.123. Hamilton ended his session with a 1:12.336. Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen showed some encouraging pace to round out the top three with a 1:12.696, 0.573s slower than Rosberg’s P1 time.
Force India’s Sergio Perez could not run in the session due to the repairs that were being carried out on his car after Daniel Juncadell’s crash in FP1. Although the damage wasn’t severe, the repair work to be carried out on his car was complicated, which resulted in the Mexican missing the session.
Jean-Eric Vergne’s session was cut short after his Toro Rosso suffered from vibrations at the front.
Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso ended his session prematurely after flames were seen escaping from his exhaust. He came to a stop in a plume of white smoke. He was quickly out of the car and did a little bit of fire fighting to put out the blaze on his car. After the session Ferrari said that it was an old engine with high mileage, so there was no cause for concern and he would not incur a penalty as it was not his race engine.
Just as the session got underway after it was red flagged to recover Alonso’s car, Sauber’s Esteban Gutierrez came to a stop in almost the same place as Alonso with a reported MGU-K problem. The session was red flagged and got underway with just 9 minutes on the clock.
The big talking point this session was about the tyre choices. Nico Rosberg had an unusually high amount of blistering on his tyres. Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo also reported heavy blistering on his rear tyres. It seems as though the tyres will be a big issue this weekend. If it does rain it will be a very different story for everyone.
