Monaco GP P2: Lewis Hamilton tops truncated rain-hit session
Hamilton maintains practice advantage, but rain scuppers supersoft running for the whole field; Ferrari distant in third and fourth; Roberto Merhi becomes first driver to find Monaco barriers in 2015
Thursday 21 May 2015 19:36, UK
Lewis Hamilton achieved the “perfect” start to the Monaco GP weekend he wished for by doubling up on fastest practice times – although the world champion and the rest of the field completed scant running in P2 courtesy of rain showers.
The combination of a red flag for an early crash for Manor’s Roberto Merhi and then the onset of uncharacteristically wet Monte Carlo weather meant that, to the increasing frustration of fans both at the circuit and on social media, there were no cars out on track for a full hour in the 90-minute session.
With less than 10 minutes to go, and with the rain having finally stopped, a handful of cars ventured out for exploratory laps on intermediate tyres but lapped around 20 seconds off the early dry-weather pace.
As had been the case in P1, that early pace had been set by Hamilton, who initially traded fastest laps with Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg before lowering the bar to an impressive 1:17.192.
Rosberg, who finished only ninth in P1 having clipped one of the circuit’s omnipresent barriers, ended up 0.7s back on his title rival ahead of a race in which he is aiming to win for the third year in succession.
“Sometimes it does happen, but today the balance was not far off and we have just been tweaking it here and there to try to gain a bit of performance. The first session was really good and then this one was really good," Hamilton, chasing his first Monaco win in seven years, told Sky Sports F1.
“I’m generally happy with the balance, but there are still things I can improve upon balance-wise, but also on the track.”
The real significance of the rain means that the whole field will go into the resumption of track activities on Saturday in final practice completely in the dark over the performance of the supersoft tyres. The weekend's 'option' compound is usually sampled half-way through P2, but the wet weather put paid to those plans with Rosberg suggesting teams had actually been caught out by the change in conditions.
Although it is therefore hard to read too much into the timesheet, the pace shown by the Ferraris throughout the day on the soft compound showed little evidence to suggest that the Scuderia will go toe-to-toe with Mercedes this weekend.
Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen trailed a second back on Hamilton in third and fourth places respectively in P2, with the Finn in particular struggling for tyre warm-up.
More encouraging news came from the performance of two engine suppliers who have struggled the most this season, Renault and Honda.
Backing up their pace from P1, Renault-powered Red Bull and Toro Rosso proved 'best of the rest' on the timesheet with Daniil Kvyat fifth for the senior team ahead of Carlos Sainz and Max Verstappen, who had already starred in the morning to go second fastest to Hamilton.
Over at McLaren-Honda and Fernando Alonso's bold pre-weekend prediction that the team will finally score their first points of 2015 this weekend appeared to be backed up by his eighth-place finish.
Force India's Nico Hulkenberg and Lotus' Romain Grosjean rounded up the top 10.
Although the runners who sampled the wet track in the closing stages didn't come a cropper in one of the circuit's barriers, Merhi hadn't been so lucky in the dry early stages when he hit the bump coming out of the tunnel under braking for the harbourside chicane and slewed into the outside wall.
Practice Two timesheet:
1. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, 1:17.192
2. Nico Rosberg, Mercedes, 1:17.932
3. Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari, 1:18.295
4. Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, 1:18.543
5. Daniil Kvyat, Red Bull, 1:18.548
6. Carlos Sainz, Toro Rosso, 1:18.659
7. Max Verstappen, Toro Rosso, 1:18.782
8. Fernando Alonso, McLaren, 1:18.906
9. Nico Hulkenberg, Force India, 1:19.151
10. Romain Grosjean, Lotus, 1:19.266
11. Sergio Perez, Force India, 1:19.300
12. Felipe Massa, Williams, 1:19.560
13. Valtteri Bottas, Williams, 1:19.566
14. Pastor Maldonado, Lotus, 1:19.577
15. Jenson Button, McLaren, 1:19.606
16. Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull, 1:19.639
17. Felipe Nasr, Sauber, 1:20.263
18. Roberto Merhi, Manor, 1:22.017
19. Will Stevens, Manor, 1:22.943
20. Marcus Ericsson, Sauber, No time
Don’t miss Sky Sports F1’s exclusively live coverage of the 2015 Monaco GP. The race begins at 1pm on Sunday, with build-up underway from 11.30am.
Live Formula 1
