Hamilton on top as Senna crashes in second practice

2012 Canadian Grand Prix second practice

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Lewis Hamilton carried on where he left off in the second practice session at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

The McLaren driver headed the times at the end of the session, followed by the two Ferraris.

Hamilton was comfortably quickest in the opening part of the session, running on soft tyres and gradually lowering his best time.

He only found a slight improvement when he switched to the super-soft tyres, lowering his best to a 1’15.259.

The teams began the session eagerly, the weather radars telling them to expect rain halfway through. But, as in the last race, the forecasts proved pessimistic, and the tracks remained dry throughout.

For the second session in a row a crash brought out the red flags. This time the culprit was Bruno Senna, who hit the ‘Wall of Champions’ at the exit of the final turn.

The Williams driver lost control of his car in the first part of the chicane. As he tried to straighten it up the rear end snapped away and he went into the wall backwards. Senna admitted afterwards he had been “frustrated” by getting into traffic on his lap.

The session restarted with just under half an hour remaining. Heikki Kovalainen, who crashed in the first practice session, was able to return to the track in his repaired Caterham.

But Jenson Button spent most of the session in the pits as a continuation of his problems from first practice necessitated a gearbox change. There was less than 20 minutes left on the clock when he finally joined the session.

Button did a 14-lap run at the end of the session, moving up to ninth place. The top 13 were covered by less than three-quarters of a second.

Fernando Alonso was second-quickest despite spinning at turn nine early in the session. Sebastian Vettel was fourth following a reprimand for his contact with Senna in the first session.

Paul di Resta, fifth, was another driver who had an off-track moment, spinning at turn one when he locked his brakes.

Pos.No.DriverCarBest lapGapLaps
14Lewis HamiltonMcLaren-Mercedes1’15.25943
25Fernando AlonsoFerrari1’15.3130.05436
36Felipe MassaFerrari1’15.4100.15139
41Sebastian VettelRed Bull-Renault1’15.5310.27244
511Paul di RestaForce India-Mercedes1’15.5440.28532
614Kamui KobayashiSauber-Ferrari1’15.6510.39237
77Michael SchumacherMercedes1’15.6970.43832
812Nico HulkenbergForce India-Mercedes1’15.7990.54039
93Jenson ButtonMcLaren-Mercedes1’15.8120.55314
108Nico RosbergMercedes1’15.8780.61940
1115Sergio PerezSauber-Ferrari1’15.8980.63938
122Mark WebberRed Bull-Renault1’15.9070.64841
1318Pastor MaldonadoWilliams-Renault1’15.9870.72839
1410Romain GrosjeanLotus-Renault1’16.3601.10129
159Kimi RaikkonenLotus-Renault1’16.5621.30333
1620Heikki KovalainenCaterham-Renault1’16.9811.72224
1719Bruno SennaWilliams-Renault1’17.0221.76322
1821Vitaly PetrovCaterham-Renault1’17.0751.81641
1917Jean-Eric VergneToro Rosso-Ferrari1’17.1241.86541
2016Daniel RicciardoToro Rosso-Ferrari1’17.7162.45734
2122Pedro de la RosaHRT-Cosworth1’18.9083.64927
2224Timo GlockMarussia-Cosworth1’19.0843.82540
2323Narain KarthikeyanHRT-Cosworth1’19.3784.11921
2425Charles PicMarussia-Cosworth1’19.9024.64318

2012 Canadian Grand Prix

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    Image © McLaren/Hoch Zwei

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    Keith Collantine
    Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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    78 comments on “Hamilton on top as Senna crashes in second practice”

    1. Good to see the Force India cars up there

      1. will be good if they can carry on this form in race and qualifiers.

        1. Agreed, this has been their best showing of pace all year.

          It’s been a strange season for them. They’ve been scoring fairly well (due to some great drives from Di Resta), but their car is definitely down the pecking order from last year (behind Lotus, Williams and Sauber).

    2. sid_prasher (@)
      8th June 2012, 20:38

      A bit surprised that Mercedes are a bit behind at this stage…though they usually pick up in FP3…happy to see Ferrari 2nd and 3rd. A podium for Felipe will be great!

      1. @sid_prasher

        Neither of the Mercs set a fast lap on the super-softs, so I think that masks the performance a bit.

        And please don’t get me excited about Felipe yet.. if I saw him and Schumi on the podium together I think I might actually die!

        1. sid_prasher (@)
          8th June 2012, 21:00

          @cduk_mugello: :) I think if Schumi can actually have a clean race he will have a good chance to be on the podium…and realistically without the help of a couple of retirements, I don’t see Felipe getting into the top 3…but it will really up his confidence if that did happen.

          1. @sid_prasher A podium for Massa, or imagine it, even a victory/pole, would be incredible for the confidence and morale of Ferrari! And the morale of me too :) Ha, but unfortunately, I can’t see it happening either..

        2. If Schumacher and Massa get on the podium I think I might die too.

          Of surprise.

      2. They’ve basically been doing race setup for alll of today.

      3. Now i’m shure that Massa’s bad permances are due to Ferrari’s sabotage. When it’s convenient for them, Felipe’s car become immediately fast. There is no other explanation. His championship and his career are compromised by Santander’s interests on seing Alonso as the only winner of the squad

        1. oh Lewis don’t do that :)

    3. I don’t like Barrichello, but I’m seeing why they probably should’ve kept him in there

      1. Me too!
        Williams believe that they are under performing since the beggining of the season, and they have revealed some issues about the driver line-up with Bottas practices and with criticism against Senna, Senna hasnt really outpaced Maldonado at any stage this season despite that he beat Maldonado sometimes and I remember listening to Bruno before Spain praising himself and listening to williams saying they werent doing good enough job.
        I don’t think Williams really believe that their drivers can really portrait the true value of their team, not with Barrichello nor Maldonado and much less Senna.

    4. JK (@justingt5)
      8th June 2012, 20:39

      Hamilton looks on strong form so far, I reckon this could be his weekend! PS how quick was this posted, it hadnt even finished on my iPad when this was published :)

      1. Finally fans are going stop saying that F1 is too unpredictable and that the tyres are responsible for that supposed unpredictability. I agree with what Alonso said to CNN, It seems that F1 is losing credibility but it’s not he said something like the best teams and drivers are going to win and to add up just stop with the excuses about your own team faults cause the tyres are confusing but the same for everybody and last time I check all cars had 4 tyres and 2 drivers and for the fans stop moaning cause HAMILTON IS GOING TO BE THE 7TH WINNER this season!

        1. well deserved winner Hamilton, has anyone notice how differently he approaches last chicane, he avoids the kerbs not cutting track like others but he seems to compensate that by having a much more stable ride afterwards, it maybe just a way to cope with a stiff car like mclaren tends to do or its just a better line.

      2. Well, assuming McLaren get their act together, he should be on pole tomorrow. You figure they will check the amount of fuel in his car before qualifying begins.

        1. How can you make that prediction with such confidence when so many other cars did a similar time to him and the season has been so unpredictable? He could have had less fuel than the others in the car….or the temperature could change tomorrow favouring another car…..or Ferrari could make a slight setup change which makes Alonso 0.054 seconds faster. :-)

          1. xeroxpt (@)
            9th June 2012, 0:27

            In this past 2 years seeing Massa close to alonso usually means that the car is good despite that Ferrari never sandbag they have nothing left in the tank, secondly Hamilton was fast and consistent, and runned long with the Super soft, almost effortlessly going purple after purple, about the temperature as you said it must be accounted for but this aint the venue for Renault powered engines, nontheless Hamilton seems to have the pace for all of them the only worrys are the Mercedes. People think that the canadian GP is a really unpredictable venue but i have an hintch this time is going to be dull for non mclaren fans, I remember watching pretty dull races here two of them won by Hamilton, if it stays dry it’s not going to be the race everyone expected for.

    5. Its just so hard to call, but Hamilton seems to be right on it here. And Ferrari are really on the rise.

    6. Hamilton put more laps on the SS tyres than anyone else, and finished it off with a 1:18.8. Very impressive it seems. Who also had at least a couple of 10ths in hand on his fast lap, looking at the sectors of other quick laps.

      1. I saw Alonso doing more laps on the se than Hamilton and he was a few times faster than the lap time set by hamilton . Last but not least the Ferrari engineers Are the best one at finding more speed on Friday night than any other team in f1 this year. I think that by some luck massa is going to win the race followed by Alonso and Hamilton will have a crash or mechanical problem and will not score. That is what I feel is going to happen

        1. I meant on high fuel load. Also, regarding on low fuel, Hamilton was going 2 10ths quicker on his 7/8th lap on SS before the red flag came out.

        2. @Teteto

          I think that by some luck massa is going to win the race followed by Alonso and Hamilton will have a crash or mechanical problem and will not score. That is what I feel is going to happen

          Which is it, how you feel or how you think? Drivers drive engineers design and develope mechanics maintain and fix and strategist develope approaches to a race. Any team with that has it all together will likely stand a chance at winning.
          Luck and hope does is not quantifiable in this game. That’s left to us fans who can’t touch anything but keyboard or the remote.

    7. does that mean that Button is going to receive a five-place grid penalty? ahhh, nothing works in his favours nowadays…

      1. He wont, as it was just FP2.

        1. ah, okay so the rule only applies for Qualy? good to know:)

      2. button’s problem was a loss of oil that affected the clutch he won’t receive any penalty because the gearbox in question was already used

        1. I don’t understand! Hamilton had to take a 5 place penalty for gearbox change on the 3rd race, when he took pole.

          1. yeah but seemingly Button got a used one, while Hamilton received a brand new one..

          2. It was during qualification. This is practice and the gearbox was already used. Teams get a limited amount of gearboxes per year, it’s when they go over their set allotment that they can get penalized. They can also be penalized if they make modifications in between qualifying and the actual race. Practice is just that, practice.

            1. But wasn’t Hamilton’s penalty announced on Friday of China? Maybe it’s because gearboxes must be used for 5 consecutive events, and since this is the 7th, Button could have replaced this faulty gearbox with one from Australia or Malaysia.

    8. Can Williams put up with Senna any longer? I say no.

      1. It was a ridiculous appointment, wan’t it! If Williams had a decent driver line-up they could be challenging at the top of the constructors table just now.

        1. If they had a “decent” driver lineup, they wouldnt have the money to build a car like this:)

          1. William Brierty
            8th June 2012, 23:15

            Barrichello and Sutil would have been a much better line-up, and because their careers were under such huge pressure, they are not going to be contractually demanding. Also you say that they’d also not have the money left over, but now there is no call for blown-diffusers, cars are less expensive to produce. I predict that Williams will recognize that both of their drivers are too inconsistant to have much of a successful F1 career, and I predict they will sign Bottas alongside a GP2 driver, like Davide Valsecchi, or they might knock on the door of one Robert Kubica.

            1. They’re going to need a ton of money when the 2013 season is nearing its end…

    9. Hamiliton is looking solid and the two ferraris with that copy cat of the macca exhaust they look strong.

      1. that solution was already on the car from the beginning the concept is the same (Blowing to the extreme end of the body) but they were having overheating problems with the rear tyres so they adapted another solution & kept developing the old one & created the new exhaust which is very similar to the Mclaren’s exhaust not by coincidence but it’s not just a simple copy cat of the McLaren’s exhaust

      2. Typical comment of a mcca fan. Watch out for alonso

    10. I wonder if the Mercedes team are doing more race preparation than quali sims, considering quali has been such a strong suit of theirs this season. I guess FP3 will probably tell more of whether they are.

    11. another good effort from pedro. the fuel loads are unknown of course, but it looks like hrt are performing bettee than marussia at this circuit. hopefully this progresses into qualifying and the race.

      i am not holding my breath for rain and a race of high attrition, but if it were to happen, i would be confident pedro and narain would keep their cars on the road.

      1. William Brierty
        8th June 2012, 23:20

        Why do you care?

        1. @William let me be the first to introduce you to the foreign and scary idea of enjoying F1 as a neutral observer, taking in the sport and all its nuances (including all of the teams) for what it is as a whole, rather than to put blinders on and slam the underdogs.

      2. Haha, @lucabadoerfan do you only support really rubbish drivers? Luca Badoer, Narain Khartikeyan… who next? Ricardo Rosset?

        (Seriously, they’re all still very talented guys. No offence meant.)

    12. Matt (@agentmulder)
      8th June 2012, 21:04

      As if we needed another reason for why Bruno should not be in that car…

      1. I don’t quite understand where all this negativity with Bruno has come from. Both him and Pastor have had only 1 good performance all season. The rest of the time they’ve binned it. We’re being too harsh on Senna, he’s only 20.

        1. Bruno is 28, born on 15 October 1983.

        2. Ian (@valkyrassassin)
          8th June 2012, 21:31

          “Both him and Pastor have had only 1 good performance all season. The rest of the time they’ve binned it.”

          That’s not really a good case for less negativity :P

          1. Negativity relative to his teammate.

        3. Matt (@agentmulder)
          8th June 2012, 22:47

          While I can’t speak for “all the negativity,” I will speak for mine.

          On the podcast I’m part of, my co-caster and I frequently butted heads about Bruno during the 2011 season. I was much more forgiving than he was. I thought that after a year out of F1, following a year in a GP2-spec HRT, that Bruno just needed time to get up to speed. I defended him right up until the Brazilian GP.

          While I still acknowledged that he was nothing more than a stop-gap for Renault’s next acquisition, I thought he could mature into a competent driver, and find a home in a midfield/backmarker team. I thought this is where Williams would be in 2012, owing to a lacking car.

          What we’ve seen in 2012 is a Williams that can win races. The car is quick, the strategy is bang on most of the times, and we don’t see silly schoolboy errors like those of McLaren. Having had a more gradual transition back into F1 than most (HRT to a lackluster Renault to a competitive car), I thought Bruno could capitalize on this.

          Instead, he is repeating the pattern from 2011. He has some moments of greatness I won’t deny it, but they are inevitably followed by moments of shear stupidity. Today’s practice session is just the most recent manifestation of this pattern. His car was shaky the entire time leading up to the crash, and instead of taking extra care with the car in a known trouble corner, he goes for glory and bins it. Contrast this with Vettel last year, who had no issues leading up to his crash, and overdid it.

          My negativity towards Bruno is the same as my negativity towards Grosjean. I really dislike win-it-or-bin-it drivers. It was the same reason Hamilton frustrated me so much last year, and I’m a fan of his. Anyone could, under the right circumstances, achieve something far above their capability. If we had a massive crash in Monaco, Narain could have scored points. Heck, Ide or Inoue could have scored points given weird enough outcomes.

          The problem is, Senna isn’t the victim of an “off season” like Hamilton had last year. He, like Maldonado, is alternating between decent racing and complete idiocy. That’s where my pessimistic attitude towards him comes from. This is only compounded by the fact that Williams actually have a good car this year, and if they had retained Rubens and signed Kimi, they could have been in contention for much, much more. I only hope Williams ditches these two pay drivers and signs a proper pair sooner rather than later.

        4. We’re being too harsh on Senna, he’s only 20.

          He’s only what?

        5. xeroxpt (@)
          9th June 2012, 0:40

          every time he opens his mouth since back in 2010 (when he was beaten by Chandok) that he gets further down in my list, Villeneuve said

          “when you do a little twitch down the straight, that is just wrong.”

          he is aggressive but he has the same problem as Massa, they just dont feel the car as the best do, they don’t have hands for it they just go for one lap sometimes it works the lap afterwards they go a total different line and then they ruin the tyres and their races.

    13. What happened to Lotus?I’ve been expecting them for a win this weekend but they are very slow.Is it the cold conditions or what?

    14. Hamilton ran like a clock. I was surprised at how Alonso was really pushing for a FP2, going off at least twice on entry to 8—trying to use every inch of track.

      1. No he wasn’t pushing it for a time, he was trying to be as fast as he could due to the fact that he and massa were trying different new components. So what he was doing was to simply be consistent and do as many laps as he could in order to give the engineer enough data to choose which parts worked the best and put them on the car for the go.

        1. Over-driving the car is NOT a way to be consistent. It’s a way to crash.

    15. Hamilton still on it. Definitely a few tenths in hand as well (was up by a 10th in sector 1 on at least two aborted laps on the super softs). I think ultimately it’s gonna come down to whether or not McLaren manages to pull off incident free pit stops come race day.

      1. xeroxpt (@)
        9th June 2012, 0:44

        +1 today they sounded bullish but not too much, they don’t want to jinx it.

    16. I don’t remember the last time that McLaren did so much running on a Friday. Usually they seem to be content to do just a handful of laps. Perhaps their recent slump in race pace convinced them to do more running on Friday. That was also possible with the Pirelli tyres holding up so well, it seemed like there was very little thermal degradation, and if conditions would be like this on Sunday, we’d see some one-stoppers for sure.

      I’m surprised Vettel wasn’t investigated for cutting the final chicane in FP1, seemingly only with the objective of overtaking a car. It’s exactly this kind of silly mistake that cost Hamilton so dearly last year. Take India, for example, where he left his DRS open under a yellow flag on Friday, collected a three-place grid penalty for Sunday, slipped behind Felipe Massa at the start, and collided with him again in the race. I do declare, I wouldn’t have minded a three-place grid penalty for Sebastian Vettel this weekend.

      1. yup, i agree, and i think people should talk more about these incidents and so should the FIA, when Hamilton did stupid things stayed in the news for a loooooong time. Recently when Schumi cuts Lewis off to go to pitlane or this Vettel one, No one seemsto care. although i do enjoy hot tempered drivers, thes acts just seem plain mean and undignified and dangerous. Way more important than some midfield guys crashing their cars. Bruno still got 15 points and Pastor as got ahead because of the 25 points win. every sports fan that some racers have good and bad periods. some even only have a few great races in their career while being average the rest of the time. so lets see what becomes before saying they re crap after only a few races.

      2. He was investigated and was given a reprimand. Which for me seems stupid considering it’s his 2nd careless moment in 7 GPs, the other being the infamous ‘cucumber’ incident at Malaysia.

        1. You mean the moment where the HRT driver admitted he caused the collision and was penalised?

        2. Careless for calling someone cucumber? Time to take your meds

        3. @alehud42, I thought he was investigated for touching Senna’s car, which I didn’t see.

    17. Hamilton seemed to be the fastest man today and probably could have done a high 1″14. Altough we should not discount Mercedes especially Rosberg, who I think will dispute with LH for pole-position. Ferrari was not bad and they can qualify with both cars in the to 6 and get maybe a podium in race.
      A bit of disappontment with Lotus, even if their Friday´s are usually low key, they didn´t seem to have the pace. They should get better tomorrow and especially Sunday with the temperatures rising.
      Force India seems to be set for their best weekend of the year.

    18. As soon as Senna hit the wall I immediately felt sorry for the mechanics. I wonder if he will do what Kobayashi did and help out? ;)

      Hamilton seems fast but I reckon Mercedes still have a full hand to show.

    19. I was surprised that ‘Nando kept driving over that same patch of grass the way he did.
      A bit amateur really.

    20. Kovalainen crashes in FP1 & nothing is said, Bruno crashes in FP2 & everyone screams that he should be replaced??

      When Bruno was outpacing Maldonado earlier in the year people were still calling for him to be replaced so it seems nothing he does will get the haters to change there opinion.
      If he outpaced Maldonado again in the next few races I bet people will still be whining that he isn’t good enough!

      1. people will still be whining that he isn’t good enough!

        Because he is not good enough! :P

      2. When Bruno was outpacing Maldonado earlier in the year people were still calling for him to be replaced so it seems nothing he does will get the haters to change there opinion.
        If he outpaced Maldonado again in the next few races I bet people will still be whining that he isn’t good enough!

        It’s not about “haters”. It’s about performing at or above the level of the car consistently, like it is for every other driver in F1 history. Maldonado and Bruno can do well, but haven’t shown any consistency.

    21. Did Ayrton Senna ever crash at the Wall of Champion? Can anyone tell?

    22. A-Safieldin (@)
      9th June 2012, 5:32

      I took a look at the speed trap pace of all the drivers here and strangely almost none of the top runners are there take a look:
      http://www.formula1.com/results/season/2012/870/7140/speed_trap.html

      Btw Keith you should start including some speed trap statistics (even though they might be a little irrelevant sometimes).

      1. I don’t think it’s all that strange: The slower cars do not have the advantage of stable downforce that works well through both the fast corners and the chicanes, so instead they go even more for top speed on the long straights than the top teams (who can take a more balanced approach).

    23. Force india are looking faster,,, i hope they will score good number of points and get closer to their rivals,,, williams luks a bit slow,,,, aswell as lotus,,,,

    24. go hamilton go

    25. Hamilton seems to be in the grove around here…he should be on pole and win unless car trouble or misplaced pitstop priority calls by the team.,who will try and call in Button first in order to get both cars in a one two situation.

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