Monaco GP: Crash & grid penalty for Maldonado after FP3

The final practice session for the 2012 Monaco Grand Prix would see both Williams F1 drivers Pastor Maldonado and Bruno Senna down the order with the final ten minutes of the session commencing. Pastor was in twentieth and Bruno twenty first. But both Williams drivers would take to the track with super softs for their final runs. The track was dry despite concerns that there may be possible showers for qualifying.

Bruno would set a 1m:17.055 to be only sixteenth. At the front it would be Rosberg fastest with a 1m:15.159, from Massa, Vettel, and Alonso. But with three minutes remaining it would go wrong for Pastor as he would clip the inside barrier at Casino Square seeing him fly across the track and into the barrier at the other side of the track. He would lose his left rear wheel in the accident seeing his session come to an end. He would stop at Mirabeau where his car was craned away. Replays showed that the lap prior to his accident Pastor had turned in onto Perez, with Pastor appearing to show his dissatisfaction with Perez for holding him up. It was unknown if this had an bearing on his crash. The session would finish with no further running so Rosberg remained fastest.

Second was Massa from Vettel, Alonso, Grosjean, Button, Hamilton, Schumacher, Perez, and Webber in tenth. Bruno would finish in sixteenth while Pastor would remain in twenty first as a result of his accident. With two hours before qualifying the Williams team would be busy repairing Pastor's car. There was also concern as to whether Pastor's move on Perez would see him in front of the stewards. It was later announced that Pastor would be given a ten place grid penalty for his move on Perez. What with Pastor's accident the weekend had now gone from bad to worse.

Pos  Driver	        Team		      Time      Laps
 1.  Nico Rosberg       Mercedes              1m15.159s 25
 2.  Felipe Massa       Ferrari               1m15.197s 21
 3.  Sebastian Vettel   Red Bull-Renault      1m15.209s 20
 4.  Fernando Alonso    Ferrari               1m15.210s 20
 5.  Romain Grosjean    Lotus-Renault         1m15.445s 18
 6.  Jenson Button      McLaren-Mercedes      1m15.471s 19
 7.  Lewis Hamilton     McLaren-Mercedes      1m15.734s 19
 8.  Michael Schumacher Mercedes              1m15.893s 23
 9.  Sergio Perez       Sauber-Ferrari        1m16.110s 14
10.  Mark Webber        Red Bull-Renault      1m16.219s 19
11.  Jean-Eric Vergne   Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m16.226s 20
12.  Kimi Raikkonen     Lotus-Renault         1m16.301s 21
13.  Kamui Kobayashi    Sauber-Ferrari        1m16.311s 19
14.  Daniel Ricciardo   Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m16.479s 20
15.  Nico Hulkenberg    Force India-Mercedes  1m17.027s 20
16.  Bruno Senna        Williams-Renault      1m17.055s 26
17.  Heikki Kovalainen  Caterham-Renault      1m17.276s 25
18.  Paul di Resta      Force India-Mercedes  1m17.390s 19
19.  Vitaly Petrov      Caterham-Renault      1m17.404s 22
20.  Timo Glock         Marussia-Cosworth     1m18.259s 18
21.  Pastor Maldonado   Williams-Renault      1m18.488s 22
22.  Charles Pic        Marussia-Cosworth     1m19.099s 17
23.  Narain Karthikeyan HRT-Cosworth          1m19.147s 19
24.  Pedro de la Rosa   HRT-Cosworth          1m19.151s 19