Technical Issues Spoil Brawn's Fun in Italian Second Practice

Patrick AllenSep 11, 2009

After such an encouraging morning session it was pretty annoying to see both Jens and Rubens so close to the bottom of the pack at the end of Friday. Jens had definitely been affected by a series of small issues and I expect Rubens had some problems too.

To be fair both drivers were using a lot of used tyres and as usual I expect the Brawn team were concentrating on raw testing rather than low fuel runs. Nevertheless, not a great afternoon for BGP.

Buemi led the pack out this time, but it was Rosberg who set the first time of 1:29:578 just four minutes in. Jenson’s first time was good enough for P11 of 16, whilst Ruben’s began with a P16 (now of 17 runners). It is worth mentioning that poor old Rubes was held up by traffic early on.

Jens’ second attempt raised him to P5 and after a great third time of 1:25:923, the Championship leader was P3. Much the same as in first practice, Rubens took his time, again only getting up to P11 on his second attempt.

Both Brawns, (and basically everyone other than McLaren), were struggling with attacking the new 15cm high curbs in the first few corners and this was affecting their lap times.

Still, despite this Jenson got up to P2 with a 1:25:696, only to be quickly knocked down a place by his teammate; (Rubens did a 1:25:582). At this stage McLaren’s Kovalainen was first with a 1:25:311.

Half an hour in and thanks to a few quick times from other drivers, Rubens had fallen to P4 and Jens was down in P7; (Heidfeld was now first on a 1:24:693 with super soft tyres). Encouragingly for Brawn, Red Bull seemed to be struggling as well. Vettel isn’t really taking part in Friday at the moment to save his engine, but he did get his car up to P8.

Webber on the other hand was clearly in trouble down in P14.

A short while later, Webber was out of his car having only completed five laps. The mechanics did a great job on the Red Bull to get it back out again quickly but clearly the Australian was not having a great time and crucially for his team, he was the man who needed to be doing the most testing.

From here onwards the Brawns began to steadily fall down the order and despite fitting the super softs didn’t really get themselves up again for the rest of the session. With 50 minutes left, Jens may have been held up by traffic but he wasn’t improving on his P13 pace.

Unfortunately, car 22 was hit with several minor but time consuming problems, including gear troubles, electronic and cockpit issues. Rubens meanwhile got himself up to P5 with a 1:25:293 which was pretty good going.

With 40 minutes left Sutil was on fire and deservedly held P1 with a 1:24:314, Rubens was P6 and Jens was P14. Ten minutes later not a lot had changed, but we did learn that it was electronic issues that had messed up Webber’s afternoon.

From P16 Jenson did manage to get up to P13 with a reasonable 1:25:424 but it wasn’t enough and the Brit finished the session in a disappointing P19. Rubens had fallen to P15 and could not improve either; he finished in P16.

After such a great first session it does look as if Brawn have taken a large step backwards. However, I think they were saving tyres and unfortunately hit by time consuming issues. It was interesting that the Red Bulls also suffered with a few problems today.

It’s hard to make predictions about Saturday and Sunday based on practice, but I think it is safe to say that KERS will dominate and with six cars fitted with that irritating magic button, Red Bull and Brawn may well have to fight over the lower points paying positions.

Hopefully tomorrow will be much more like this morning for BGP, and if that is so, we should have a great qualifying session to look forward to!

Pos No Driver Team Time/Retired Gap Laps

1 20 Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1:23.924 28

2 8 Romain Grosjean Renault 1:24.163 0.239 31

3 7 Fernando Alonso Renault 1:24.297 0.373 35

4 2 Heikki Kovalainen McLaren-Mercedes 1:24.482 0.558 41

5 5 Robert Kubica BMW Sauber 1:24.622 0.698 40

6 10 Timo Glock Toyota 1:24.634 0.710 36

7 6 Nick Heidfeld BMW Sauber 1:24.693 0.769 34

8 4 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari 1:24.796 0.872 39

9 17 Kazuki Nakajima Williams-Toyota 1:24.799 0.875 36

10 12 Sebastien Buemi STR-Ferrari 1:24.884 0.960 44