Spain’s Dani Clos has responded to comments from Racing Engineering Team Principal Alfonso de Orleáns–Borbón, advising him to be ‘more aggressive’, by posting the quickest lap time in Hockenheim’s practice session on Friday morning. On a drying track, several dramatic moments caused concern further down the field.
In spite of their efforts, ART racers Jules Bianchi and Sam Bird could not deprive Clos of his top spot, with his Racing Engineering team-mate Christian Vietoris even slipping to P3 at the chequered flag.
Although Bianchi was quick in action as the session started, it was GP2 returnee Romain Grosjean who showed the strongest pace in the early minutes, but Clos was soon faster than anyone else.
While the two Frenchmen battled hard to try and better the Spaniard’s best laptime, the rest of the field were busy managing the tricky and slippery track, many of them going wide at Turn 1.
It was a short session for Michael Herck, who span and hit the wall at Turn 13. Fabio Leimer also lost control of his Ocean car at Turn 12 and had to retire as well. The first half of the session come and gone, Clos was still ahead of Grosjean by a small margin with Bianchi and Giacomo Ricci in tow.
Light rain started to fall and the second sector became all the more difficult to pass as Adrian Zaugg’s incident at Turn 17 proved. The Trident man lost control of his machine and had to retire. In the closing minutes, Bird kept improving in sectors 1 and 3, enough to claim the third best lap time, but he was quickly pushed back two spots by Bianchi and Series leader Pastor Maldonado.
While Grosjean, Bianchi, Maldonado and Bird were fighting hard to better Clos’ quickest laptime, it was Vietoris who eventually clocked in time good enough to place him in P3 under the chequered flag. Since the German weather promises more rain for this afternoon, it is quite safe to bet that the qualifying session will be one you cannot miss.
Qualifying in Germany begins at 3:55pm (BST +1)
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