Hamilton tops rain-disrupted second session

2015 Monaco Grand Prix second practice

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Lewis Hamilton stayed on top in practice for the Monaco Grand Prix but a rain shower limited running during the second session.

The red flags came out a quarter of an hour into the session after Roberto Merhi crashed his Manor at the exit of the tunnel. The rookie lost control on the crest approaching the chicane and knocked his front wing off against the barrier.

Rain began to fall during the brief stoppage so that when the track was opened again no one headed out to begin with. Pastor Maldonado did an exploratory run on the super-soft tyres but soon radioed back that the conditions were too wet and returned to the pits.

Almost an hour passed before the track saw any further action. Fernando Alonso took to the track with ten minutes remaining, and was soon joined by most of the other runners. However on the wet track their times were over 18 seconds off the dry-weather pace.

Marcus Ericsson failed to join the track at all due to a technical problem with his Sauber.

Pos.No.DriverCarBest lapGapLaps
144Lewis HamiltonMercedes1’17.19212
26Nico RosbergMercedes1’17.9320.74016
35Sebastian VettelFerrari1’18.2951.10314
47Kimi RaikkonenFerrari1’18.5431.35115
526Daniil KvyatRed Bull-Renault1’18.5481.35616
655Carlos Sainz JnrToro Rosso-Renault1’18.6591.46714
733Max VerstappenToro Rosso-Renault1’18.7821.59012
814Fernando AlonsoMcLaren-Honda1’18.9061.71418
927Nico HulkenbergForce India-Mercedes1’19.1511.95913
108Romain GrosjeanLotus-Mercedes1’19.2662.07413
1111Sergio PerezForce India-Mercedes1’19.3002.10813
1219Felipe MassaWilliams-Mercedes1’19.5602.36815
1377Valtteri BottasWilliams-Mercedes1’19.5662.37414
1413Pastor MaldonadoLotus-Mercedes1’19.5772.38513
1522Jenson ButtonMcLaren-Honda1’19.6062.41414
163Daniel RicciardoRed Bull-Renault1’19.6392.44713
1712Felipe NasrSauber-Ferrari1’20.2633.07110
1898Roberto MerhiManor-Ferrari1’22.0174.8259
1928Will StevensManor-Ferrari1’22.9435.75113
209Marcus EricssonSauber-FerrariNo time5.751

Second practice visual gaps

Lewis Hamilton – 1’17.192

+0.740 Nico Rosberg – 1’17.932

+1.103 Sebastian Vettel – 1’18.295

+1.351 Kimi Raikkonen – 1’18.543

+1.356 Daniil Kvyat – 1’18.548

+1.467 Carlos Sainz Jnr – 1’18.659

+1.590 Max Verstappen – 1’18.782

+1.714 Fernando Alonso – 1’18.906

+1.959 Nico Hulkenberg – 1’19.151

+2.074 Romain Grosjean – 1’19.266

+2.108 Sergio Perez – 1’19.300

+2.368 Felipe Massa – 1’19.560

+2.374 Valtteri Bottas – 1’19.566

+2.385 Pastor Maldonado – 1’19.577

+2.414 Jenson Button – 1’19.606

+2.447 Daniel Ricciardo – 1’19.639

+3.071 Felipe Nasr – 1’20.263

+4.825 Roberto Merhi – 1’22.017

+5.751 Will Stevens – 1’22.943

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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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18 comments on “Hamilton tops rain-disrupted second session”

  1. I’m starting to get really bored with this no-run on wet lately from the teams!
    Pirelli is always talking about more pre-season testing on wet, teams also… why not use practice days like this one (where they can’t gain nothing for this weekend, but maybe for others) to understand the wet tires and the car behavior in the rain?!?! Dull practice session!!

    1. They don’t want to risk the car, If there not going to learn anything for that weekend there not going to run & risk damaging a new part or something that is going to get them a grid penalty if it needs replacing.

      1. I understand your view, but I would love now to see some rain during the weekend! Like Johny said even with just 1 lap Hamilton learn that the black lines are worst than the white one. Little info for sure, but that can be useful. They never know. I prefer to see slow cars running than nothing during an 1hour.

      2. And they don’t want to use their engines if it is not valuable running.

    2. Only 4 sets of wets & inters for all weekend = save your wets & inters for quali & race… They need more tyres!

    3. Well Pat said they didn’t run because there was no rain expected during the weekend! So why not take the time to test some stuff?

      But no worries, at least I have GP2 and can see some awesome driving in the wet!

      1. Do not run as engine mileage is limited, it is not going to rain for the rest of the weekend so nothing to learn and if damage car it compromises the rain. If it was winter testing they would run.

        Way round it, no limits on engines, spare cars in case they crash and loads of tyres. Problem is half the grid would go bankrupt. That’s the thing with cost saving it is a paradox to high level motorsport, you cannot have both.

        1. Exactly right, although I wonder if they really save any money by not having a spare car since they carry spares for almost everything that makes a car.

  2. Is it just me, or would that picture make a great wallpaper? Somebody having a high definition one?

    1. See here

    2. @turbof1 The original file doesn’t seem too bad.

    3. There is a high resolution version if you keep clicking on it. Or do you also mean 1080p 16:9 by high definition. 1680 x 1120 wouldn’t be high enough then.

  3. Quite interesting FP2… Not on track but on Twitter.
    Good job by Mercedes and Lotus Twitter teams

  4. digitalrurouni
    21st May 2015, 16:09

    So would it be safe to say the cars of this year are quicker already by over a second compared to last years? Or are they running neck and neck? Any one know?

    1. The fastest time we saw last year was a 1:15.9 or so, and that was in qualifying. To compare with FP2 last year, I think Alonso came in with a 1:18.4, so that should be taken with a grain of salt for multiple reasons – it being the first day the V6 engines ran around Monaco, Alonso coming having the quickest FP2 time in that terrible 2014 Ferrari, and Hamilton clocking in half a second slower than Hamilton’s FP2 time.

      tl;dr Let’s wait until Saturday afternoon to accurately compare last year’s cars with this year’s.

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