Raikkonen steals show in Hungary GP practice
Kimi Raikkonen signalled his intention to bounce back from McLaren’s German disappointment by going faster than his racing rivals in practice for the Hungarian Grand Prix at the Hungaroring today.
The McLaren driver concedes he needs a miracle to beat Fernando Alonso to the world championship after he retired from a certain victory in Germany last weekend.
But he arrived in Hungary – the closest he gets to a home race as thousands of Finns attend the race – determined to end his frustrating spell of near misses and showed his speed in second practice today.
Test drivers Ricardo Zonta and Alex Wurz took the top two spots for Toyota and McLaren respectively, taking advantage of their extended running without engine restrictions.
But Raikkonen was the class of the race drivers, coming home within a second of Zonta’s best lap of one minute 20.409 seconds.
Jarno Trulli and Ralf Schumacher were fourth and fifth respectively to give Toyota huge encouragements from three drivers in the top five. Juan Pablo Montoya completed a top six made up exclusively from McLarens and Toyotas.
World championship leader Fernando Alonso was eighth for Renault while Jenson Button took his BAR-Honda to ninth and David Coulthard was 13th for Red Bull.
Michael Schumacher’s session came to a worrying halt when his Ferrari stopped after just nine minutes, before the world champion had chance to complete a lap.
There were no signs of smoke but the sudden failure raised the prospect of a potential engine change, which would bring with it a 10-place grid penalty. The stricken Ferrari was hauled back to the pits on a tow truck and Schumacher took no further part in practice.
McLaren showed why they are pre-race favourites by setting an early pace, with Montoya leading Raikkonen on the timing sheets as the session reached the halfway mark.
Raikkonen’s title rival Alonso pushed too hard in a bid to keep pace with McLaren and ran off track half an hour into second practice.
The Toyota pair of Trulli and Schumacher split the McLarens as the end of the session drew close.
But there was still time left for Jacques Villeneuve to spin, avoiding a Jordan under braking before Zonta went quickest. As the chequered flag waved, Rubens Barrichello lost control of his Ferrari and nudged the barriers.
Chanoch Nissany’s brief stint as Minardi third driver did not extend to any laps in today’s second session.
The 42-year-old Israeli made his Formula One debut on his birthday this morning but was massive 12 seconds off the pace before spinning into the gravel.
His handful of laps came when few – if any – rivals were on track and with today’s second session traditionally the busier of the two, it seemed the wealthy Budapest-based businessman was being kept out of harm’s way.
Wurz made a better impression in his third driver role, setting the fastest time of the first session with a lap of 1min 21.411secs while Barrichello was second, 1.423secs down.
Button was close behind while Raikkonen took fourth with Michael Schumacher fifth and Sauber’s Felipe Massa sixth.
