Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsFormula 1

Massa quickest in wet FP2 in Sochi

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Felipe Massa set the fastest time of a wet second practice session for the Russian Grand Prix which saw just eight drivers set lap times.

Following a farcical opening session which was reduced by half an hour while the track was cleaned following a diesel spillage, the teams were unable to carry out any dry running in FP2 as heavy rain started to fall 10 minutes before the start of the session.

With the track very wet in places early on, all of the running that did take place was on the full wet tyre, with McLaren the busiest team. Fernando Alonso took a new power unit in FP1 which resulted in a 25-place grid penalty, but he reverted to an older specification in the second session and completed 12 laps before being told to return to the pits slowly due to a problem.

Alonso had topped the times before pitting, with Max Verstappen spending a spell on top before a number of quicker laps in the closing limits. With Valtteri Bottas having gone fastest, Sebastian Vettel's final lap put him provisionally top before Massa set his time of 2:00.458 to end the session 0.201s clear of the Ferrari.

Vettel was first out on track despite the conditions and ended up with the second fastest time even after running off track at Turn 13 late in the session having outbraked himself at the end of the long straight.

The two Mercedes and Force India drivers joined Marcus Ericsson in completing installation laps but failing to set a lap time, with Ericsson being warned by his engineer there was no point in risking the car in the conditions, with tyre temperatures a concern.

A number of drivers didn't run at all due to the wet conditions, with Daniel Ricciardo, Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Nasr joining the Lotus and Manor drivers in remaining in the pits throughout the session.

AS IT HAPPENED: Russian Grand Prix FP2

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Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
01	Felipe Massa	Williams	2:00.458	6
02	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	2:00.659	8
03	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	2:00.688	8
04	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso	2:00.806	7
05	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	2:01.077	12
06	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull	2:01.418	6
07	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso	2:02.805	7
08	Jenson Button	McLaren	2:02.845	8
09	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes		6
10	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber		3
11	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes		3
12	Sergio Perez	Force India		3
13	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India		3
14	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull		1
15	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari		0
16	Romain Grosjean	Lotus		0
17	Felipe Nasr	Sauber		0
18	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus		0
19	Will Stevens	Manor		0
20	Roberto Merhi	Manor		0

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.