Hockenheim, 20 July

Intermittent rain this morning was just a foretaste of the heavier downpour that hit the Hockenheimring this afternoon in the second session. The track was almost undriveable for much of the time, with few cars venturing out on the Extreme wets. In fact the Ferraris did not take to the track until 40 minutes into FP2 to try the Pirelli blue Cinturatos. As the rain eased, both drivers switched to Intermediates and as in England two weeks ago, the two F2012s proved to be very well balanced in the adverse conditions. In the last 30 minutes, it seemed that the sun might even poke out from behind the clouds, but the rain soon returned to definitively end the session with a red flag because of Schumacher’s accident, thus prematurely stopping the usual Friday programme.

Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso were 12th and 20th fastest in times of 1.29.719 and 1.31.207 respectively. Maldonaldo was fastest for Williams (1.27.476,) followed by Rosberg in the Mercedes (1.27.564) and Vettel in the Red Bull (1.27.902.)