Vettel tops final German practice, smoke forces Karun abandon car

Jul 23, 2011 |

Reuters

Tags:

Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel set the fastest lap as India's Karun Chandhok, picked to replace Jarno Trulli this weekend, sent smoke flying from his Team Lotus and had to abandon the car at the final practice for the German Formula One Grand Prix on Saturday.

The world champion sped round his home track in 1minute 30.916 seconds very late in the session to snatch the initiative from team mate Mark Webber and Ferrari's Fernando Alonso.

Dark clouds hung over the traditionally wet Nuerburgring and could cause problems with qualifying for Sunday's race at 1200 GMT if the heavens open.

Spain's Alonso, who won the last race at Silverstone, was quickest in first practice on Friday and has said the resurgent Italian team had to go for broke if they were to have any chance of getting back into the title reckoning.

Friday's second session saw Australian Webber fastest with championship leader Vettel, 80 points clear with nine out of 19 races gone, saying he was not 100 percent happy with his car.

Any glitches appeared to have been fixed on Saturday as he zoomed past his adoring fans in the galleries.

Tyre suppliers Pirelli reckon drivers could opt to change tyres very late in Sunday's race given the dynamics of the circuit and the weather.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/86229" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-82286fda7ef4f2e0c976f9b3df156e2b" value="form-82286fda7ef4f2e0c976f9b3df156e2b" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="87612326" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>