Nico Rosberg kept his Williams FW30 ahead of Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari and Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren on Saturday morning as sunny weather and a bone dry track greeted drivers at the Ile Notre Dame.
With warmer temperatures heating up the track and most of the teams working on their fuel strategies for Sunday’s race, the times were slower than Friday. Rosberg’s Williams clocked 1 minute, 16.355 seconds, a long way off defending race champion Lewis Hamilton‘s fast lap of 1:15.732 on the opening day of practice.
World champion Kimi Raikkonen was close behind at 1:16.589 in his Ferrari, followed by McLaren’s Hamilton at 1:16.725, Felipe Massa in the second Ferrari at 1:16.787 and Kazuki Nakajima at 1:16.898 in the second Williams.
Toro Rosso drivers Sebastian Vettel and Sebastien Bourdais both crashed in the last fifteen minutes of the session and the various stoppages and yellow flags prevented any improvements on Rosberg’s early time.
Vettel’s crash was the more serious and although the young German was able to walk away unaided, the collision did leave plenty of debris scattered across the track and forced a stoppage.
The interruption caused a pit lane queue, with all the drivers hoping for a late run on the super-soft tyres. It was not to be however, Bourdais crashed into a wall and out came the yellow flags again.
Practice resumed with only six minutes left in the one-hour session, when the other Toro Rossi with Sebastien Bourdais aboard brushed a wall.
Vettel’s car had gone into a spin early in the practice, as did Nelson Piquet’s Renault, but both continued on. Piquet then hit a curb on his final lap and his car stopped at the side of the track facing backwards.
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