In a wet session that saw times well above the average pace, Robert Kubica of BMW shone above the rest setting the fastest lap time late in the session. Times were falling continuously as the track got drier after an early morning soak and Kubica was the man who took his opportunity to shine.
Timo Glock was again the man setting the early pace as he put another impressive session at the Japanese Grand Prix in the bank as he looks for a good points finish this weekend. Nelson Piquet in the Renault came from absolutely nowhere to almost knock the Toyota from second.
Kubica's BMW team mate Nick Heidfeld was struggling early on to adjust to the conditions, but as the session wound down he found his groove and set quick laps continuously and good enough to finish fourth fastest. Home town hero Kazuki Nakajima also put in an impressive performance on a track he knows well, setting the fifth fastest time, well ahead of his team mate.
Out-going veteran David Coulthard was the first of the Red Bull cars in the order in sixth, with team mate Mark Webber in eighth. Splitting them was the first of the Ferrari's in Felipe Massa. Massa had set the fastest time for a while, but could not reproduce the magic from earlier on.
Singapore hero Fernando Alonso couldn't repeat his heroics of two weeks ago and finished the session ninth, while Sebastian Vettel brought his Toro Rosso home in tenth.
Championship contender Lewis Hamilton did not participate in the frantic finale, but if he did there is no doubt he would have been fastest. He led home the rest of the pack that included Sebastien Bourdais, Jarno Trulli, Nico Rosberg, team mate Heikki Kovalainen, Kimi Raikkonen, Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button. Both Force India cars were at the tail of the field after struggling, with Adrian Sutil getting the better of Giancarlo Fisichella.
Similar to yesterdays second practice session, the first 16 cars are separated by only 1.1 seconds, a remarkable achievement when you consider some teams stopped developing their cars for this year a long time ago. Whether that remains the same in qualifying is doubtful, but we hope it does so that we get some decent surprises similar to Monza.
Written: Sat, 11 Oct 2008 03:56:03
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