Due to the bad weather in Monaco on Thursday afternoon, the Formula 1 drivers were deprived of any full running on the Super Soft tyre compound which is being used for the first time this year. Only nine men fitted the red-marked rubber before the rain fell, with Jenson Button managing to set the fastest time in the process.
Although the Super Softs have already been run in both pre-season testing and the Mugello outing which took place between the Bahrain and Spanish Grands Prix, Monte Carlo marks the first time they have been used on a 2012 race weekend; the combination of Soft and Super Soft will remain in place for the Canadian Grand Prix in two weeks’ time.
“We weren’t able to even fit the Super Soft and only Button was able to find the right window to make the most of the Option, which is how he set the fastest time,” explains Fernando Alonso, who had set the pace in the dry opening session of the morning.
“Now we must see what the weather will be like on Saturday morning; if it turns out to be dry then maybe we will do more laps than usual, but even if it rains we will have to do work aimed at the race.”
Drivers who set fastest Practice 2 time on Super Soft tyres:
- Jenson Button (P1)
- Pastor Maldonado (P5)
- Mark Webber (P7)
- Kamui Kobayashi (P8)
- Lewis Hamilton (P11)
- Paul di Resta (P12)
- Sergio Pérez (P15)
- Vitaly Petrov (P16)
- Jean-Éric Vergne (P17)
Although the field later fitted Intermediates to cater for the damp conditions, Alonso elucidates that hardly any valuable data has been collected there either:
“In fact, it’s not as though we understood much more when on the Intermediates, given that the track was only damp in places and so it wasn’t very representative. We can’t control the weather, we can only adapt to it as it changes. As for the car, I would say the first impressions are quite positive - everything seems to respond as we would expect.”
Practice resumes with the hour-long session before qualifying on Saturday morning.
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| Pos. | Driver | Team | Time | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. |  J. Button | McLaren | 01:15.746 | 15 |
| 2. | R. Grosjean | Lotus | 01:16.138 | 18 |
| 3. | F. Massa | Ferrari | 01:16.602 | 20 |
| 4. | F. Alonso | Ferrari | 01:16.661 | 22 |
| 5. | P. Maldonado | Williams | 01:16.820 | 19 |
| 6. | N. Rosberg | Mercedes | 01:17.021 | 14 |
| 7. | M. Webber | Red Bull | 01:17.148 | 22 |
| 8. | K. Kobayashi | Sauber | 01:17.153 | 21 |
| 9. | M. Schumacher | Mercedes | 01:17.293 | 11 |
| 10. | S. Vettel | Red Bull | 01:17.303 | 20 |
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