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Alonso, Button Brave Practice Conditions At Monaco

MONTE CARLO, Monaco- A huge amount of smoke in the tunnel, followed by a late shower headlined Thursday practice for Sunday’s Grand Prix of Monaco, with Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button setting the fastest times in the opening two sessions, respectively.

The minute the opening session began, Alonso started out as the first car to drive onto the circuit, and immediately set the opening best time of 1:16:265, followed by Lotus driver Romain Grosjean and Sergio Perez right behind him. The weather at the beginning was full of sunshine, and all the drivers wanted to get out onto the street circuit to get the fastest times and get used to the tough job of balancing their down force on this classic track. Button, though waited instead for 15 minutes as his team made him evaluate a new cockpit position for next season.

With the temperature on the street circuit at just over ninety degrees, Frenchman Jean-Eric Vergne was the first driver to hold steady times, just missing the barrier on the final turn. But after the main drivers got a feel for the track, the times dropped. While Grosjean was one of two drivers to challenge the top spot to overtake Alonso, his Lotus teammate, Kimi Raikkonen could not set a time, complaining of steering troubles.

But as always at this circuit, many incidents occur. First, Nartain Kathekeyan’s HRT out braked itself and went off the escape road at Mirebeau, while Mark Webber cut the chicane out of the tunnel and kissed the armco approaching Tabac, while Michael Schumacher had to return to the pit lane after a fault in his wing dragged along the circuit. But it was Heikki Kovalainen in his Caterham, who gave the tunnel a plume of smoke following his engine failure, and in addition, left a trail of oil on the racing line. This brought out the red flag just eight minutes from the end of the session.

The second session was a little less dramatic, but the activity did not stop Button from improving with the best time of the day of 1:15:746, testing his super soft compound tire very early in the session. But rolling clouds that were coming in for some time greeted the drivers in the afternoon, and an opening light shower caused the drivers to come in for wets or intermediates. However, the rain began to halt, and the dry weather only led to another rain shower, this time even harder, and by this time, the drivers could not get a faster time because of the adverse conditions.

Unfortunately, rain is not only seen for practice, but for Saturday and on Sunday, which can give this race some dramatic moments when this does happen.

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