Charles Leclerc beat Ferrari team-mate Sebastian Vettel to the top of the time-sheets in Free Practice Two at the Hockenheimring as Mercedes came up short on it’s single lap pace.
Leclerc’s 1:13.449 benchmark was set on the C4 red side-walled soft compounds whilst undertaking his qualifying simulation run in the mid-way point of the session.
The young Monegasque driver was 0.124 seconds quicker than Vettel’s best effort with Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton taking third and only 0.022 seconds further off.
In another session that could prove unessential if the weather changes as it’s predicted on the forecast for qualifying and race day, Hockenheim sweltered with intense heat on Friday, as ambient temperatures hit 37 degrees and the track spiking up to 51 degrees.
Fast tyre degradation was the issue and story of the day as several teams experimented doing shorter runs in the earlier stage of the 90 minute session.
Single lap pace was hard to master since the tyres needed to be managed very delicately, during and after any hot laps, drivers switching to the soft rubber later in FP2 to do their qualifying simulations had to run two very slow cool laps between their quicker efforts.
FP1 pacesetter’s Ferrari continued to take hold at the top of the time-sheets as Leclerc – despite reporting over his radio of a brake issue, posted the benchmark of a 1:14.523 on the C1 white-marked harder tyres, jumping Vettel’s time of a 1:14.804 set on mediums.
But when Mercedes hit the track, Hamilton moved ahead with a 1:14.074 on mediums and Valtteri Bottas followed suit jumping the Scuderia duo on hard tyres with a 1:14.467.
Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen joined in the party getting between both Ferrari’s in the opening thirty minutes until Vettel put on a set of softs and broke through the 1:14’s, taking a 1:13.573 but was eclipsed by team-mate Leclerc who planted a 1:13.449.
Verstappen was unable to match the Ferraris when he used the softs, but the Dutchman reported of a power issue that was investigated by the team in the pits. His team-mate Pierre Gasly could not get a good lap in on the softs as the Frenchman wound up well outside of the top ten after setting a 1:15.089.
When Hamilton and Bottas chucked on a pair of softs, they came up just short of the Scuderia on their flying first attempts, as the former pulled out of a second hot lap when he could not find a decent time out of it at the end. Bottas’s effort was more than half a second adrift of Leclerc’s best.
Vettel then emerged to do long runs on the mediums but ended it four laps in saying “We’re not learning anything from this.” as the German at his home Grand Prix also joined the rest of the front-runners in using softs for race simulations in the latter part of the session.
Most of the drivers in the top ten were running at six seconds a lap slower than their qualifying simulations.
The session brought out a brief red flag in the final 15 minutes when Gasly looped his Honda-powered RB15 under acceleration at the final corner and speared into the barriers, which deployed the medical car.
The session went back to green with nine minutes remaining, which brought out a lot of track activity that saw only little in lap time improvement since most of the field were on mediums on hard except for Vettel who was running softs.
Verstappen ended FP2 in fifth and two hundredths off of Bottas, while Haas F1 Team’s Romain Grosjean taking best of the rest honours in sixth on the time-sheets setting a 1:14.179 on the soft compounds during his qualifying simulation run.
Behind the Frenchman, Racing Point’s Lance Stroll and Alfa Romeo Racing’s Kimi Raikkonen followed in seventh and eighth respectively as they cracked into the top ten with their best efforts on the softs.
Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg was ninth posting his time of a 1:14.472 on softs in the halfway point of the session but became stuck in the pit-lane when his R.S.19 racer locked in neutral as the German lined up to perform a practice start.
His team-mate Daniel Ricciardo however, endured a difficult session locking up and going off at the second corner early on whilst running the mediums. His soft run effort of a 1:15.010 left the Australian split from Hulkenberg in 13th and behind Racing Point’s Sergio Perez, McLaren’s Carlos Sainz and Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat.
The other Toro Rosso of Alexander Albon took 14th and was in-front of the aforementioned Gasly who was 15th and McLaren’s Lando Norris who was 16th.
The other Alfa Romeo Racing C38 of Antonio Giovinazzi ended the day 17th on the time-sheets and ahead of Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen who wound up a low 18th and the two ROKiT Williams Racing FW42’s of George Russell and Robert Kubica who brought up the rear.
You can check out the full Formula 1 Mercedes-Benz Grosser Preis Von Deutschland 2019 Free Practice Two Results Classification at the link: https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2019/races/1010/germany/practice-2.html
You can also read the report of Free Practice One at this link: #Vettel leads @ScuderiaFerrari 1-2 in FP1. #F1 #GermanGP
Selected Driver Quotes
Lewis Hamilton, #44, Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport, F1 W10 EQ Power+: “It’s not been the best of days in terms of the heat, but pretty straightforward otherwise. These tyres don’t like the temperatures so we had to do very slow outlaps and the tyres don’t last very long. It’s all about trying to keep the tyres in the working range. They were always overheating, so that’s been the main issue today, but we’re all in the same boat. We’re hoping the weather won’t be like this for the rest of the weekend. If it’s cooler and it’s dry, nothing from today really applies – the tyres will come back towards us and everyone will be quicker and more comfortable on the track.”
Valtteri Bottas, #77, Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport, F1 W10 EQ Power+: “It was extremely hot, I can’t remember the last time I drove in these kind of conditions, but it’s the same for everyone. It makes it more tricky for the drivers, the cars and the tyres. We saw lots of overheating, especially in sector 3. We’ve made some progress on our cooling; we would have struggled massively to run here with the package we had in Austria, but with the new package we could actually complete some good long runs. The weather is going to be completely different tomorrow and on Sunday with lower temperatures and a chance of rain. So we will need to be very dynamic reacting to the weather with the car set-up. We haven’t really run in the wet this year, so I actually hope for rain – it would be nice to drive in the wet.”
Sebastian Vettel, #5, Scuderia Ferrari, SF90: “I am happy with how today went. It took me a short while before finding the rhythm. We lost a bit of time in the first session when running the Mediums because of a red flag. I don’t know what programme our rivals were on, and how much they had to turn down the engine mapping because of the heat. It would be nice to have this weather on Sunday. Overall, it was a positive day, mainly because we have understood how to manage the car in these conditions. We got through all our programme aimed at having the car in the best possible set up and we have to continue down this route tomorrow, when track conditions and the weather could be very different.”
Charles Leclerc, #16, Scuderia Ferrari, SF90: “It was a positive day overall. The feeling in the car was good and we performed well during the high-fuel runs, which was one of our main challenges at the beginning of the season. High temperatures, such as those we saw today, suit our car well. It seems that there may be a change in the weather conditions tomorrow and on Sunday, which we will adapt to. Over the past few weekends, our competitors only revealed their full potential in qualifying. We must keep our heads down and continue working on optimizing our performance on this track. I look forward to being back in the car tomorrow and will give my best to put it on the front row.”
Max Verstappen, #33, Aston Martin Red Bull Racing-Honda, RB15: “Today was ok. We haven’t quite found the perfect balance yet but we are also not too far behind. In FP2 I didn’t have a clean lap on the softest compound as I had to abort and around here it is really a one lap tyre. I ended up doing extra laps on the tyre and the peak of the grip was gone. We are a little bit behind Mercedes and Ferrari but with some fine-tuning it will be ok and I think we are better than the times from FP2 show. It’s always good to get plenty of running on a Friday, even if the conditions are going to change, as you can still get an understanding and find the right direction for the rest of the weekend. One thing I know for sure is that it’s very hot and I’ve been sweating a lot!”
Pierre Gasly, #10, Aston Martin Red Bull Racing-Honda, RB15: “It was quite a tricky day today. We managed to get some decent laps during FP1 and the feeling with the car was good. We completed the normal tests and then in FP2, we had a couple of issues which meant we didn’t get a short run on soft tyres and that put us back in the classifications, but the feeling was still good. Unfortunately, towards the end of the session I lost the car exiting the final corner during a long run and hit the barrier. Fortunately, I wasn’t using my race engine or gearbox, but more importantly I’m really sorry for the boys in the garage and I want to apologise to them as the repairs will make for a long night. Looking ahead to tomorrow, the conditions are going to be completely different so we need to learn from today and analyse all the tests we have done.”
Nico Hulkenberg, #27, Renault F1 Team, R.S.19: “It’s been a productive Friday for us. Obviously, it was very challenging with the heat, which made things tricky for the car, drivers, mechanics and the tyres. Managing the tyres was a big subject today, but all in all, it’s not been a bad day. The midfield looks close again with a lot of cars in there. We need a good effort tomorrow to be at the front of that. I wouldn’t mind some rain tomorrow, that would make it interesting around here!”
Daniel Ricciardo, #3, Renault F1 Team, R.S.19: “We put in plenty of laps today, so no complaints there. We have a bit of lap time to find, but we’ll try and figure it out tonight. We won’t stress too much as the weather and temperatures look like they’ll change for the rest of the weekend. Physically, it wasn’t too bad out there, it was certainly hot and quite hard at the wheel but I quite enjoy that! It was tricky making the tyres last and the grip didn’t feel great, but that’s the same for everyone.”
Carlos Sainz, #55, McLaren-Renault F1 Team, MCL34: “I think the hot conditions offered a very challenging Friday to pretty much every team. For us, it was a matter of evaluating new set-up directions, which we did across FP1 and FP2. FP1 looked competitive; FP2 a bit less, so we need to analyse why. Our rivals look like they’ve made a good step forward, so it’ll be interesting come qualifying to see where we are exactly this weekend. The weather conditions also seem to change a lot for tomorrow and Sunday, so that might bring good opportunities. We’ll be ready for that.”
Lance Stroll, #18, SportPesa Racing Point F1 Team, RP19: “I felt happy with the car. It is early days, but it looks like we have made a step forward with the upgrade. You can see the car looks quite different and it’s encouraging to be in the top ten for both sessions. It’s only Friday, though, and there is lots of work to be done to carry this performance through until Sunday. Track temperatures were very hot, but looking at the forecast we could see a big change for the weekend.”
Kimi Raikkonen, #7, Alfa Romeo Racing, C38: “It’s been a regular Friday and I tend not to look at the times when it is just practice. We always seem to be a bit behind in FP1 and make up ground as the weekend goes on, but times only matter from tomorrow afternoon. The conditions weren’t ideal: the heat made it a bit tricky but in the end it’s the same for everybody. It’ll be interesting to see what the weather does tomorrow and on Sunday, but we just need to focus on the work we have to do to get where we want.”
Romain Grosjean, #8, Rich Energy Haas F1 Team, VF-19: “It’s been a good day. I’m generally happy with the car – and have been since the first lap this morning. It was quite exciting to see the lap time in the afternoon being so close to the mix with Bottas and Verstappen. Maybe when qualifying time comes it could be a different story, but so far, I’m very happy. We’re evaluating a lot of things here. The long runs, I think we can work on that a little bit, we tried different things but didn’t quite get the right direction. I’ve got confidence that we can sort that out for the rest of the weekend. The feeling in the car though has been really good. It looks like the weather might be quite different for the rest of the weekend, it’ll play a part. I’m looking forward to tomorrow and Sunday.”
Alexander Albon, #23, Scuderia Toro Rosso-Honda, STR14: “I think it wasn’t a bad day today, but there is still a bit of work to do. We’ve brought some upgrades here, so we just need to understand them a bit better. There are things which we can improve on to help get us into the top ten, such as the balance, so we will see how to best optimise the car for Qualifying. However, it seems the weather will be different tomorrow. It was very hot today, probably one of the hottest I’ve had driving a car, it felt like there was a hairdryer in my face!”
George Russell, #63, ROKiT Williams Racing, FW42: “Today was very hot! It was quite unrepresentative for the weekend, which I think was the same for everyone up and down the grid. We’ve learnt some things and got a lot of evaluating to do of the parts we tested today, some of which were only on Robert’s car and may also be on my car tomorrow. We’re definitely looking forward to putting a bit more performance on the car but today it’s really difficult to know what the improvements were, as it was difficult to get a clear back to back comparison. The first signs seem relatively as expected.”