Rosberg roars back to top Brazil practice

Nico Rosberg bounced back after being left behind by a dominant Lewis Hamilton in the morning to top the times for Mercedes in Friday’s second free practice session for Sunday’s Brazilian Grand Prix.
The 30-year-old answered the newly-crowned triple world champion’s early speed by beating him by nearly half a second in the afternoon.

But, as he revealed after the session, his advantage was illusory because Hamilton had been using the wrong engine settings.

"Today was OK, a good start to the weekend," said Rosberg. "But the gap to Lewis is not the real picture, as he got his engine settings wrong, so there is big lap time in that for him.

"But it's a decent start and I'm pleased with the direction I've gone in."

After winning in Mexico two weeks ago, Rosberg has recovered his confidence and is seeking a fifth consecutive pole position, but he said he is taking nothing for granted.
"It's always a challenge to adapt to a new circuit, especially this one, which is completely different somehow to last year," he explained.

"I think they've changed the kerbs, so you can't attack them in the same way. The asphalt has also broken up a lot, because of the sports cars that have been here some months ago.

"We’ve had to be a bit creative today and find some new lines!"

Hamilton said he expected a tough battle, as usual, with his team-mate.

"Nico's driving really well, so it's going to be close, for sure," he said. "But there were no problems – it was generally quite smooth, same old, same old."
Hamilton, fastest by half a second in the opening session after what he described as "a difficult week", was 0.458s slower than Rosberg, who posted a best time of one minute and 12.385 seconds during a strong run on soft tyres.

Four-time champion Sebastian Vettel was third fastest ahead of his Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen with Daniel Ricciardo completing the top five in his Red Bull equipped with Renault’s latest engine.

Valtteri Bottas of Williams was sixth, ahead of Romain Grosjean of Lotus, Nico Hulkenberg of Force India, Daniil Kvyat in the second Red Bull and local hero Felipe Massa in the second Williams.

Fernando Alonso of McLaren again suffered what seemed to be a Honda engine failure when his car stopped out on track midway through the session.

Both Bottas and Dutch teenager Max Verstappen in his Toro Rosso had spins as they pushed later in the session.

Hamilton had earlier shown no ill-effects from his exhaustion, fever and recent car crash when he topped the times with typical elan in opening practice as he began preparations in pursuit of his first victory in nine attempts at Interlagos.

The 30-year-old Briton had arrived 24 hours later than scheduled, on Thursday, at the sprawling, but spectacular circuit where he has admitted he is keen ‘to salute’ his childhood hero Ayrton Senna with a triumph on the Brazilian’s home soil on Sunday.

Having shaken off the lingering after-affects of his non-alcohol-induced ‘hangover’ following an intense period of work and partying, he proved again that his high-speed lifestyle does not appear to hamper his high-speed control of an F1 racing car despite struggles with the braking at Turn One, the first part of the famous Senna curves, where he locked up several times.
Source: AFP