Mugello: Vettel sets pace on final morning

03/05/2012

Morning Times - All Times Unofficial

Fernando Alonso set the early pace in the heavily updated Ferrari before a mechanical failure caused him to crash at Turn 12, costing the team over two hours in track-time as it battled to repair the damage.

Vettel's pace-setter came just an hour before the break, the German raising the ante with an even quicker lap on a subsequent run.

Romain Grosjean, who set the pace here yesterday, along with Kamui Kobayashi, effectively picked up where he left off, posting the second best time, just 0.067s slower than Vettel's.

Alonso's wasn't the only incident to bring out the red flags indeed, there have been a number of them thus far, including Paul di Resta who was left stuck in the kitty litter midway through the session.

The Scot, who lost much of the day yesterday due to a problem with the VJM05, was given this morning's running to make up for lost time, with teammate Nico Hulkenberg taking over this afternoon. At McLaren, Oliver Turvey will hand over to Gary Paffett.

While Heikki Kovalainen was the busiest driver this morning, completing 62 laps, Pastor Maldonado has managed just 4.

At Mercedes, where Nico Rosberg has completed 57 laps, the German team appears to be focussing on reliability rather as opposed to times.

First pictures, here.