virgivaughn: Maldonado on top as Schumacher crashes in the rain

Maldonado on top as Schumacher crashes in the rain is an original article from F1 Fanatic. If this article has been published anywhere other than F1 Fanatic it is an infringement of copyright.

The rain remained at the Hockenheimring in the second hour-and-a-half of practice and this time it was even heavier.

Only Bruno Senna ventured out in the first quarter of an hour to check over his repaired car following Valtteri Bottas’s crash at the end of first practice.

As the rain eased and began to stop the cars filtered out onto the track, led by Jean-Eric Vergne who ran wide at turn eight on the soaked track as he set his first lap.

The track quickly filled up with the Ferrari and McLaren drivers among the last to join in. As the surface water began to lift the lap times fell quickly. The Ferrari pair were consistently among the quickest with Romain Grosjean regularly taking over at the top of the times as well.

The track passed the crossover point to intermediate tyres and drivers were beginning to consider slicks when the rain returned. At the same time race control were advising drivers they could use DRS again, fresh rain sent the cars back to the pits and DRS was swiftly deactivated again.

Pastor Maldonado had just set the fastest time before the conditions worsened, ahead of home drivers Nico Rosberg and Sebastian Vettel.

A few drivers returns to the track for the final minutes of practice but two of them hit trouble. Daniel Ricciardo understeered off at the turn 13 hairpin in the Motodrom and came to a stop in the gravel trap without hitting anything.

But Michael Schumacher was not so fortunate when he lost control of his Mercedes one corner earlier. The W03 sustained front and rear damage as he bounced off the barriers. The session was red-flagged with four minutes remaining and not restarted.

Pos.	No.	Driver	Car	Best lap	Gap	Laps
1	18	Pastor Maldonado	Williams-Renault	1’27.476		14
2	8	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1’27.564	0.088	24
3	1	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull-Renault	1’27.902	0.426	24
4	15	Sergio Perez	Sauber-Ferrari	1’28.402	0.926	26
5	10	Romain Grosjean	Lotus-Renault	1’28.420	0.944	20
6	12	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	1’28.495	1.019	22
7	16	Daniel Ricciardo	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1’28.513	1.037	23
8	3	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	1’28.516	1.040	16
9	2	Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault	1’28.877	1.401	21
10	9	Kimi Raikkonen	Lotus-Renault	1’29.327	1.851	22
11	17	Jean-Eric Vergne	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1’29.364	1.888	26
12	6	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1’29.719	2.243	15
13	14	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber-Ferrari	1’29.785	2.309	24
14	25	Charles Pic	Marussia-Cosworth	1’30.090	2.614	19
15	24	Timo Glock	Marussia-Cosworth	1’30.220	2.744	16
16	19	Bruno Senna	Williams-Renault	1’30.291	2.815	22
17	20	Heikki Kovalainen	Caterham-Renault	1’30.331	2.855	26
18	11	Paul di Resta	Force India-Mercedes	1’30.437	2.961	14
19	4	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	1’30.617	3.141	16
20	5	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1’31.207	3.731	20
21	21	Vitaly Petrov	Caterham-Renault	1’32.241	4.765	22
22	23	Narain Karthikeyan	HRT-Cosworth	1’32.349	4.873	17
23	7	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes	1’32.777	5.301	18
24	22	Pedro de la Rosa	HRT-Cosworth	1’42.566	15.090	8