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Team Summary:
The opening Friday practice session for the 2016 Japanese Grand Prix would
see Williams Martini drivers finish in tenth and sixteenth with Valtteri
Bottas leading team-mate Felipe Massa. Both drivers had focused on the
medium tyre whilst the quickest time was set with the soft. With the start
of the session drivers would come out running on a mixture of hard and
medium tyres. Teams were splitting their drivers with one of hard and the
other mediums. Grosjean would set a 1m:35.795 with Button now second. Vettel
would go quickest with a 1m:34.150, running on the hard tyre, with Alonso
second. Raikkonen would go second, on the medium tyre, with a 1m:34.408,
making it a Ferrari one-two. Sainz and Kvyat were third and fourth with
Felipe fifth. Perez was now third on the hard tyre. But team-mate Hulkenberg
would go third, also on the hard tyre, with Perez fourth. Of the top ten
only Raikkonen and Felipe were on the medium tyre.
Rosberg would go quickest with a 1m:33.758 running on the medium tyre. But
Hamilton would go quicker with a 1m:33.475 but he was on the hard tyre.
Verstappen was up to third followed by Vettel, Ricciardo, and Raikkonen
sixth. Drivers would start to come out on the soft tyre including Vettel and
Hulkenberg. Using the soft tyre Vettel would set a 1m:33.103 to be quickest
from Hamilton. Hulkenberg would set a 1m:33.873 to be fifth. Perez was now
third, 1m:33.570, splitting the Mercedes cars. Rosberg was on a soft tyre
run setting a 1m:32.250 to be quickest from Vettel by 0.853s. Raikkonen
would go second with a 1m:32.573 but Hamilton would take this spot with a
1m:32.322 to be behind Rosberg by 0.072s.
With Gutierrez having stopped his car on the side of the track the Virtual
safety Car would be deployed. This would spoil a lap from Ricciardo and
Verstappen. With forty five minutes remaining the track was quite empty but
the Virtual Safety Car would be turned off seeing drivers come back out,
including both Williams. The pair were currently ninth and eleventh as they
continued a long run on the soft tyre. Both Williams drivers were setting
times in the mid to high 1m:39s. Still neither Williams cars were in the top
ten of the speed traps. Rosberg and Hamilton were back out on the medium and
hard tyres. The order was Rosberg, Hamilton, Raikkonen, Verstappen, Vettel,
Perez, Hulkenberg, Alonso, Bottas and Sainz tenth. With ten minutes
remaining the track was very busy as both Williams cars continued to lap the
circuit. The Williams pair would finish in ninth and eleventh.
Valtteri Bottas:
Valtteri would come out running on the hard tyre with the Williams team also
splitting their programme. Valtteri would set a 1m:35.183 to be fifth behind
Perez. He would drop to ninth and would also pit after a five lap run. With
just under an hour remaining Valtteri would return to the track also on a
new set of soft tyres. Valtteri would set a 1m:34.028 to be eighth dropping
to ninth. Valtteri would return after the end of the Safety Car period
continuing to run on the same set of soft tyres. Valtteri would commence a
longer run on the soft tyres and the last half hour of the session
commenced. Valtteri would pit switching to the hard tyre for a further
longer run. Valtteri was lapping in the high 1m:39s on his run. With the end
of the session Valtteri would complete twenty laps on the hard tyre.
Felipe Massa:
Felipe would be first out for Williams continuing on the medium tyre with a
new set. He would set a 1m:35.371 to be fifth then sixth. Felipe would
comment that he had traffic on his first lap. He would drop to eighth and
would pit having completed four laps. He would drop to twelfth sitting in
his garage. He would return with just over and hour and five minutes left in
the session, this time on a set of new soft tyres. Felipe was on a quicker
lap setting a 1m:34.127 but the car still looked like it way too much
understeer just as in the first session. This would see him sixth dropping
to seventh. Felipe would complete another lap but would fail to improve. He
would pit after four laps. Felipe would drop to tenth to be behind his
team-mate. Felipe was also back out on the used soft tyres.
Felipe would run wide at Degner after locking up and would only just miss
going onto the gravel. After a long run on the soft tyre he would pit taking
on a new set of medium tyres for another run. Felipe was running in the mid
1m:39s as the session ended having completed seventeen laps on the medium
tyre. |
