Scuderia Toro Rosso’s stopwatch-based performance was nothing special today, with Sébastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari ending up seventeenth and eighteenth respectively at the end of this afternoon’s free practice session, although the Swiss driver did significantly better in the morning, when he was seventh fastest in a session that started in the rain and ended with track drying out but nevertheless remaining damp.

Yes, the rain that arrived in Hockenheim yesterday has decided it likes it here and has dogged track action in all the formulae running today, causing red flags and spins aplenty. Our duo kept out of trouble, the two STR5s ran faultlessly and at least the rain meant we were able to evaluate four types of tyre; two for the wet and two for the dry. Current predictions would suggest that we will be using the rain tyres again for tomorrow morning’s final hour of free practice, but they will be put away for qualifying and the race. The relatively short lap at the Hockenheimring means the lap times are inevitably much closer, so that suggests qualifying will be a very tight session, where grid positions will be decided by the tiniest of margins and the slightest mistake will be heavily penalised.

Fernando Alonso’s claim that he can still win the world championship did not have many supporters among F1 pundits in recent weeks, but here in Germany, Ferrari does seem to be on the pace, with the Spaniard posting the quickest time at the end of the three hours of free practice, backed up by team-mate, Felipe Massa in third spot. Splitting them on the time sheet is Sebastian Vettel in the Red Bull, with his team-mate, Mark Webber in fourth place. The local fans were no doubt pleased to see three German drivers in the top six, as Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher posted the fifth and sixth times in their Mercedes. Having replaced Bruno Senna at Hispania Racing a fortnight ago at Silverstone, Japan’s Sakon Yamamoto is still in the cockpit, this time at the expense of Karun Chandhok. He was slowest today.

Now that we are well into the second half of the season, some people in the F1 circus have evidently decided to find new ways to keep themselves entertained. On the ground outside the McLaren motorhome is a 2 Euro coin, a coin with a difference, as it has been glued to the ground. Much entertainment has been had watching people trying to pick it up!

 

Article Details

Date

Jul 23, 2010

Participants

Jaime Alguersuari, Sebastien Buemi

Events

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