Free Practice 2: Rosberg takes back control at home in Monaco!

For the second Free Practice session of the day on this Thursday, it’s Nico Rosberg, taking up the good old habits, who sets the fastest time – the German, like many drivers, lives on the Rock. Under the sun of the Principality of Monaco, the Williams driver leads the McLaren of Hamilton, who persists, and the two Brawn GP drivers. Massa is fifth, while the BMW and Toyota cars are still lagging behind.

The weather conditions are still favorable on the Côte d’Azur. The sky is blue, temperatures are around 25°C, and the track has more grip, making lap times increasingly competitive. Like this morning, Buemi is the first driver to go out, followed by Piquet and Rosberg. Very quickly, all the drivers do their warm-up laps. They even stay on the track to take advantage of the mild weather, with most putting in around forty laps. The hour-and-a-half session consistently sees at least 13 cars on track, which is very rare in F1.

Barely out of the pits, a driver encounters a problem. Thick white smoke emerges from the engine hood of a BMW. Robert Kubica blows his engine. The circuit seems very demanding for the V8s and mechanical systems that were reliable on other tracks. The Pole will wait in his pit for the entire session and will not be able to go back out. Very bad start to the weekend for BMW.

As usual, the soft tires are slightly more performant than the hard tires. The drivers began to put on these tires after half an hour of testing and quickly went under the 77-second mark. Fifteen minutes before the end of the session, as 17 drivers were contending for the best potential time, Kovalainen was the first to go under 76 seconds per lap with a time of 1:15.984. He was quickly beaten by Rosberg and Hamilton, who then engaged in a real duel. Rosberg emerged victorious by two-tenths of a second over the McLaren driver. Three Mercedes engines were in the top four spots. Barrichello and Button were 3rd and 4th for Brawn GP. Button is seen as the favorite to win the legendary Grand Prix of the season but has not had luck so far. Every time the Briton was on a fast lap, he was more or less hindered by a competitor—once by Fisichella, then by a Toro Rosso, or even Rosberg.

The circuit being small, the drivers are forced to get in each other’s way. Massa, moreover, showed signs of irritation with Fisichella when the latter cut in front of him. The Brazilian was slowing down to have a clear field, but the Force India driver overtook him anyway. The Ferrari driver still finished 5th, five-tenths behind.

Vettel, who faced an engine failure this morning, will not be penalized thanks to the new rule imposing a penalty only after the 8th failure. He is the leading driver of the Red Bull fleet with the 6th place. His teammate also experienced reliability issues, but in the afternoon. Webber is 12th and lost a good half hour in the pits studying his transmission.

Kovalainen, Räikkönen, Nakajima, and Piquet complete the top 10. The Brazilian narrowly edges out his Spanish colleague at Renault. Alonso is therefore 11th after often leading the timesheet. He completes 38 laps, a good average when considering that the Toro Rossos did 47… without reliability issues.

In 13th place, we find the first Force India, of Sutil. The German likes Monaco and shows it. His teammate is only 19th, 6 tenths behind. Trulli is 14th and shows a slight improvement from this morning’s times. Many observers are wondering why Toyota is bluffing with their times. The Italian, back from Abruzzo a few days ago, is ahead of the two Toro Rossos, Buemi still ahead of Bourdais by a few hundredths.

Heidfeld and Glock are 17th and 18th, two seconds behind Rosberg. Fisichella is therefore in last place without Robert Kubica’s time, 20th.

Many drivers have gone out and clipped the St. Dévote chicane and faced some difficulties at Mirabeau. However, none have yet hit the barrier. Good signs for the rest of the sunny weekend.

Results of Free Practice 2 – Monaco – Thursday, May 21, 2009: