- Mugello test - Day 2
Grosjean fastest on second morning of Mugello test
- Drivers:
- Romain Grosjean
- |
- Felipe Massa
- |
- Mark Webber
Lotus' Romain Grosjean topped the timesheets at lunch on the second day of this week's Mugello test, after the teams enjoyed a dry track for most of the morning session.
Torrential rain yesterday afternoon severely restricted running, and despite a damp start to the morning on Wednesday, the circuit soon dried up and started to yield decent lap times. Grosjean's 1:21.603 was the fastest lap of the week so far, 0.394s quicker than Mark Webber in second and 0.654s faster than Felipe Massa in third.
Lotus had originally planned to run Kimi Raikkonen on Wednesday, but after losing out on roughly 60 laps due to the wet conditions on Tuesday the team opted to run Grosjean at both of the remaining days. He completed 47 laps over the course of the morning with a series of four and five lap runs after his initial installation laps.
Webber completed 54 laps in total with his fastest time coming in the hour before lunch. He's scheduled to hand the car over to team-mate Sebastian Vettel in the afternoon, who will continue in the cockpit for the final day of the test on Thursday.
Massa also completed 54 laps in his first morning in the Ferrari this week. Once again the F2012 was the centre of attention for the Italian crowds and it was also the focus for photographers trying to snap a picture of the F2012's latest updates.
Toro Rosso's Jean-Eric Vergne was fourth fastest ahead of Kamui Kobayashi, who continued to gather data on Sauber's latest group of upgrades. After completing just five laps on Tuesday afternoon, Michael Schumacher notched up an impressive 74 laps in the Mercedes, setting the sixth fastest time in the process. He will remain in the car for the afternoon session before handing it back to Nico Rosberg on Thursday afternoon.
Charles Pic was seventh fastest in the Marussia ahead of rivals Caterham, who spent part of the morning completing constant-speed aero tests with Vitaly Petrov at the wheel. Gary Paffett in the McLaren and Bruno Senna in the Williams also set lap times, but neither appeared to be gunning for fast laps and both completed less mileage than the cars higher up the timesheets.
Paul di Resta was the only driver not to set a lap time after his Force India spent much of the morning in the garage and completed just seven installation laps in total. When the car did emerge it featured a new exhaust layout and the team said it was working on an "aero programme".
Times
Driver | Car | Time | Laps | |
1. | Romain Grosjean | Lotus E20 | 1:21.603 | 47 |
2. | Mark Webber | Red Bull RB8 | 1:21.997 | 54 |
3. | Felipe Massa | Ferrari F2012 | 1:22.257 | 54 |
4. | Jean-Eric Vergne | Toro Rosso STR7 | 1:22.422 | 51 |
5. | Kamui Kobayashi | Sauber C31 | 1:22.424 | 48 |
6. | Michael Schumacher | Mercedes W03 | 1:23.404 | 74 |
7. | Charles Pic | Marussia MR01 | 1:23.982 | 46 |
8. | Vitaly Petrov | Caterham CT01 | 1:24.312 | 62 |
9. | Gary Paffett | McLaren MP4-27 | 1:24.480 | 38 |
10. | Bruno Senna | Williams FW34 | 1:25.221 | 40 |
11. | Paul di Resta | Force India VJM05 | No time | 7 |