Friday Practice Two: Still a very wet Spa

At the start of Marussia’s 50th Grand Prix weekend since joining Formula 1 as Virgin Racing, Charles Pic has officially set the fastest time in second practice at Spa. It looked as though no times would come across the rain-affected 90 minutes, but several drivers were classified despite beginning their final runs in the pit lane.

Charles Pic, Masussia Cosworth

Formally, Pic might have been fastest, but in reality this was the first time in seven years that not a single competitive lap time had been registered in an F1 session; this last happened, ironically, when only three cars ventured out of the pits here at Spa back in 2005.

With heavy rain, strong gusts of wind and low air temperatures, Friday was arguably the most uncomfortable day of the season so far for race fans, who had been keen to see the field back in action after the month-long summer break. Frustrations grew in the paddock, not least for Lotus who were more than eager to trial their Double DRS which was planned to be raced for the first time this weekend. Ferrari also found themselves with a quandary, as they had wished to compare low and high downforce rear wings with Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa.

Nico Rosberg was first on-track for Mercedes, breaking what had already been a 48-minute silence since the green lightilluminated. There were two spins during the hour and a half, as both Heikki Kovalainen and Timo Glock lost control at Les Combes; the right-left chicane, which is at the end of the DRS zone, has been the scene of a number of incidents throughout the day as drivers out-braked themselves and took to the run-off area.

As the weather is forecast to be dry on Saturday with another chance of rain on Sunday, tomorrow’s third and final practice session promises to be hectic as the field scrabbles for space on-track to attempt an acceptable car setup ahead of the 44-lap race.

Results

Pos.	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
1.	Charles Pic	Marussia	02:49.354	4
2.	Daniel Ricciardo	Toro Rosso	02:49.750	3
3.	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	02:50.497	3
4.	Paul di Resta	Force India	02:51.333	3
5.	Pastor Maldonado	Williams	02:51.660	4
6.	Timo Glock	Marussia	02:52.076	4
7.	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber	02:53.232	4
8.	Jean-Eric Vergne	Toro Rosso	02:58.232	3
9.	Nico Hülkenberg	Force India	02:59.125	5
10.	Sergio Perez	Sauber	03:12.901	4
11.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	no time	3
12.	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes	no time	4
13.	Heikki Kovalainen	Caterham	no time	1
14.	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren	no time	2
15.	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull	no time	3
16.	Jenson Button	McLaren	no time	2
17.	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	no time	2
18.	Bruno Senna	Williams	no time	3