Rain disturbed Thursday’s morning session

Today, Thursday, the unveilings have restarted with rain after yesterday’s unpredictable day. A of 10 AM, rainstorm limited the unveilings at Jerez; none could complete 30 laps. A little while after 11 AM, the severe storm caused stagnant water in the racetrack generating a red flag.

As a result, times are even more diverse than yesterday’s, with Felipe Massa leading the timesheet previous to the rainfall. The only team that made a remarkable progress was Virgin, with Timo Glock driving up to 26 wet laps.

On its part, Lotus, seems to have stepped backwards and no time has been registered up to now. For a few moments, at the Lotus box, fire was seen coming out from under the engine’s cover, but the team has not yet announced the reason.

Renault has not established a lap time neither at the beginning of the session. Vitaly Petrov continues his second consecutive testing day under the rain.

The teams gathered again on a wet racetrack on the second testing day and more precipitation is expected for tomorrow. The programs were fractured yesterday by two severe rainstorms and five red flags, and it seems that today is not going to be different.

Felipe Massa went directly to the top part of the timesheet with a time of 1:28.879 at the beginning of his second successive testing day. The only teams that changed their UPS line were Mercedes, with Nico Rosberg behind the steering wheel, and Lotus, that made the first test with Heikki Kovalainen with the el T127. Paul di Resta continues in Force India, but it is expected that in any moment, he will be substituted by Tonio Liuzzi. Lucas di Grassi, today will share his single-seater ,Virgin with Timo Glock.

Just before a break for lunch, the racetrack began to improve and that allowed some time modifications. Barrichello placed himself first at one thirty with a best time of 1:28.499 in a rather long session (he remained in the track for 20 minutes straight.) Hamilton clocked his best personal time of the day with 1:31.833, but very far from the morning’s best times. Afterwards, the Brazilian in his Williams stopped the chronometer in 1:27.145, using all the fuel.

Right now, Petrov with his Renault went back to the racetrack and placed himself second with 1:27.891. The track is drying, although there are still some pools. Ferrari has not explained its long stop at the boxes. It has been rumored that it had an electrical problem. At the end of the morning session, only the Russian pilot, Petrov and Barrichello have dropped off from 1:28.9.

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