GP2 Practice & Qualifying Affected By Rain At Spa
Maldonado was the only driver with a clear view as he raced ahead of the pack in the rain at Spa-Francorchamps during the GP2 free practice on Friday. Most drivers were trying not to destroy their cars before the feature race and seemed relieved to pull into the pit when the practice was halted. GPUdate reported the details:
The Venezuelan set a best time of 2:16.498 halfway through the rain-affected session: he was the first man on track to be sure of a clear view and was constantly fastest in a session that was not likely to see too much action, given the conditions.
Just after Maldonado set his fastest lap the heavens opened and everyone tried their best just to get back to the pit lane; there were a number of spins on their return and unfortunately for Fabio Leimer he was a passenger as his car found the wall – the impact prompted a red flag period, ahead of an early halt to the session.
More @ Maldonado fastest as rain halts Spa practice – GPUpdate.net.
Practice Results:
1. Pastor Maldonado Rapax 02:16.498
2. Dani Clos Racing Engineering 02:18.368
3. Alvaro Parente Coloni Motorsport 02:18.651
4. Michael Herck DPR 02:18.816
5. Romain Grosjean DAMS 02:19.233
6. Christian Vietoris Racing Engineering 02:19.342
7. Oliver Turvey iSport International 02:19.579
8. Marcus Ericsson Super Nova International 02:19.603
9. Fabrizio Crestani DPR 02:19.914
10. Sam Bird ART Grand Prix 02:19.968
11. Sergio Perez Addax 02:20.009
Qualifying Results
The downpour continued into the qualifying race and completely changed the lineup on grid for the feature races. By the end of the qualifying race, Merck was on pole, Maldonado was 3rd, Turvey 4th, Perez 8th, Bird 9th, Clos 12th and Parente wasn’t in the top 10 at all – coming in 16th instead, just behind Bianchi. Check out the horrible visibility in this highlights video:
(Full results of the qualifying race are at the end of the video…)
Apparently, Sergio Perez faced the most difficult qualifying race of his career, despite being at one of his 2 favorite circuits. (“Spa y monza son mis dos pistas favoritas!”) It sounds like his car wasn’t set-up properly for Spa’s particular challenges, according to PerezRacing.com:
Perez suffered with the balance of the car and had problems with understeer, resulting in the Dallara Renault could not enter the complex curves of the mythical Spa Francorchamps with good maneuverability.
The article quotes Perez saying:
“It was a very difficult qualifying session, we had no speed. The car was much in front of us in the second sector, and that prevented me from finding a good line, I had no grip. I think that eighth was the best we could do today, we had the speed to have been later, but tomorrow is another day.”
Perez shared similar statements via twitter on Friday: “Muy complicada la calificación!! Muy poca visibilidad.. Mañana es otro día lo intentaremos todo!” And on Saturday: “Teníamos la velocidad para haber peleado x la victoria lástima la penalización!!!mañana es otro día arrancando 2do :( fue un error mio:( ”
Feature race results coming up next!
More info about the Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgium:
on mut8 – Spa Francorchamps Grand Prixview
on wikipedia – Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps
[...] of Maldonado. It was clear Perez was having trouble with his car on Belgium’s famous circuit (more info in previous post) Still, I was hoping he’d place in the top 5 after seeing him fly out of his starting [...]