Japanese GP: No improvement for Williams F1 in FP2

The second Friday practice session would again see Williams F1 driver Pastor Maldonado take to the track early in the session, aiming to make up for the time he lost when his left rear tyre came off his car in the first session. Pastor would set a 1m:36.722 on his first flying lap. As the session progressed we also had team-mate Valtteri Bottas out on the track but for Valtteri he would run wide at the Spoon curve, but he was able to rejoin via the asphalt run-off area. For their early runs both Williams cars were on the hard tyre.

But for Pastor his session would again come to an end when he was to run wide at the Degner curves and put his car into the tyre barrier. He would get out of his car with the car being lifted away. Pastor has run wide and put his car into the gravel and from there it was into the barrier. Pastor would later tell his team that he had no grip and lost the back end.

With fifteen minutes of the session complete Valtteri would set have set a lap of 1m38.173s to be sixteenth. Another driver to crash would be Perez this time at the Spoon curve. With just over half an hour completed Valtteri would set a 1m:36.546s on his first run on the medium tyre but he would remain sixteenth. His next lap would see him set a 1m:36.136 seeing him move up to thirteenth. More drivers would start to use the softer medium tyre and it would be Webber who would go fastest with a 1m:34.020. But Vettel would move ahead with a 1m:33.852 to be quickest by 0.168.

With half an hour of the session remaining Valtteri had dropped to be seventeenth and Pastor eighteenth. Rosberg was third followed by Raikkonen, Grosjean, Hamilton, Ricciardo, Massa, Button, and Alonso in tenth. Having completed twenty six laps Valtteri was back in his garage after a high fuel run on the medium tyres. Other drivers were also completing longer runs on the medium tyre. Drivers were pushing with several having off track moments including Alonso, Vettel, and Di Resta spinning at the chicane. Raikkonen had also lost control of his car ending up in the gravel at the Dunlop curve ending his session.

As the session drew to a close there was little in the way of changes in the order as drivers worked on longer runs on tyres that were well used. In many cases drivers had pitted and swapped from the medium tyre to the hard. As the final minutes of the session counted down Valtteri had completed thirty nine laps, completing a lot of laps in light of Pastor's absence. Valtteri would again completed a practice iy stop as he returned to his garage.

The session would end with Valtteri having completed forty laps remaining in seventeenth, while Pastor was down in eighteenth. Both Williams drivers were well of the pace both being over two seconds slower than the quickest times. The top ten would remain the same with Vettel still fastest from Webber, Rosberg, Raikkonen, Grosjean, Hamilton, Ricciardo, Massa, Button, and Alonso in tenth. A difficult and frustrating day for the Williams F1 team with the FW35 still well off any real pace.

Pos  Driver         	  Team		        Time     Laps
 1.  Sebastian Vettel     Red Bull-Renault      1m33.852s 35
 2.  Mark Webber          Red Bull-Renault      1m34.020s 35
 3.  Nico Rosberg         Mercedes              1m34.114s 36
 4.  Kimi Raikkonen       Lotus-Renault         1m34.202s 17
 5.  Romain Grosjean      Lotus-Renault         1m34.411s 30
 6.  Lewis Hamilton       Mercedes              1m34.442s 36
 7.  Daniel Ricciardo     Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m34.473s 30
 8.  Felipe Massa         Ferrari               1m34.698s 35
 9.  Jenson Button        McLaren-Mercedes      1m34.912s 34
10.  Fernando Alonso      Ferrari               1m35.087s 32
11.  Esteban Gutierrez    Sauber-Ferrari        1m35.089s 36
12.  Jean-Eric Vergne     Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m35.109s 34
13.  Nico Hulkenberg      Sauber-Ferrari        1m35.182s 34
14.  Paul di Resta        Force India-Mercedes  1m35.275s 35
15.  Adrian Sutil         Force India-Mercedes  1m35.341s 25
16.  Sergio Perez         McLaren-Mercedes      1m35.709s 8
17.  Valtteri Bottas      Williams-Renault      1m36.136s 41
18.  Pastor Maldonado     Williams-Renault      1m36.722s 6
19.  Charles Pic          Caterham-Renault      1m37.630s 31
20.  Giedo van der Garde  Caterham-Renault      1m37.905s 36
21.  Max Chilton          Marussia-Cosworth     1m38.121s 33