Interesting that Jenson switched to a low down force setting for FP2 after being within a tenth of a second in FP1 - especially with rain expected?
Pat Fry: From what we can see a few minutes after the end of the session, we can say that we are reasonably competitive, especially over a long run. Massa: I am reasonably pleased with my times, especially when it comes to pace over a long run: I think I was the fastest man on track in the final part of the session. On my first lap with the Mediums, I lost a few tenth at the second corner, so, in terms of an outright time, I could have done even better than fourth place. Alonso: We have not yet found the ideal balance on the car, so there is still a lot of work to be done with the engineers going into the rest of the weekend. The predictions are for very different conditions from Saturday to Sunday, further reason to concentrate on the best choices when it comes to preparing the car for qualifying, but especially for the race.
The way the weather reports are going, it's going to be dry on Sunday. Each report has the rain getting progressively weaker.
Like I've said all week we are promised rain every year and its relatively rare that it comes. Selective memory
It's going to be one of those races where the engineers are constantly on the radio saying "rain in five minutes", "rain expected in ten minutes", "rain expected in five minutes" and then it never actually rains.
Seems Massa was also trying to cool his tyres down as well as Lewis looking at their longest stints, they might be quicker than RBR on race pace but they're cooking their tyres at these temperatures far more than RB who were really steady with their times and by the looks of it running more fuel. At these temperatures the hard tyre looks the better race tyre than the medium in my opinion.
http://forums.autosport.com/index.php?showtopic=176806&st=1160&p=6041309&#entry6041309 Saturday and Sunday predicted to be colder than what FP2 was which means heading back into Austin range.
Are you basing this on their lap times? James Allen was going on about Hamilton having "cool off" laps to save the tyres, he was probably just backing off for traffic though.
Nah looking at this pace on the graph of F1fanatic: http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2012/11/23/2012-brazilian-grand-prix-friday-practice-analysis/ Either he was cooling those tyres down more than Lewis or Felipe was focusing on qualifying pace as he never goes longer than 2-3 laps until he slows up again and then continues with the pace. Unlike Seb and mark for example who have consistent (constant) lap times, maybe not as fast as McLaren and Ferrari, but they look to be able to keep going like that unlike the McLaren and the Ferrari. It could be the case one going longer on one tyre than the other, 2 stop vs 3 stop etc...
Rain might come right on Q3? Renault Sport F1 ‏@RenaultSportF1 A very humid and sticky morning in Interlagos. Quali is scheduled to be dry but hard to believe at the moment... 5 Live F1 Producer ‏@5LiveF1 Currently very hot and humid here at Interlagos, clouds building in the distance. Qualy forecast to be dry... Alan Baldwin ‏@alanbaldwinf1 It's humid in the press room this morning. Going to be more than humid outside later, I reckon.
Ian Fergusson ‏@fergieweather @andrewbensonf1 note radar developments to W. Not a question of if Interlagos gets a soaking, but when. Pre-frontal showers hard to predict! http://sigma.cptec.inpe.br/radar/radar.animacao.logic?i=en&radar=PSR Interlargos inbetween Itapecerica da serra and Sao Bernado do Campo.
http://iacit.com.br/ingles/ This one refreshes every 5 minutes by the looks of it, but the rain is starting to gain strength!
Latest forecasts show increased chances of rain for qualifying, no much change to the race conditions though: Saturday: 07:00 - Sunny Skies 10:00 - Sunny Skies 13:00 - Light Rain (1.6mm) 16:00 - Light Rain (2.4mm) 19:00 - Light Rain (1.7mm) 22:00 - Light Rain (1.6mm) Sunday: 01:00 - Moderate Rain (2.7mm) 04:00 - Light Rain (1.7mm) 07:00 - Light Rain (1.1mm) 10:00 - Light Rain (2.3mm) 13:00 - Light Rain (2.2mm) 16:00 - Light Rain (0.9mm) 19:00 - Light Rain (0.5mm) 22:00 - Light Rain (0.4mm)
