Brazilian Grand Prix - Practice 2 Formula 1

Hello and welcome back to Sao Paulo in Brazil, we have just two Grand

Prix left before the end of the season and while Lewis Hamilton has

already been crowned champion, the fight is on to be best of the rest.

Alan McNish, we have been hiding from the rain, lovely and sunny this

morning but we knew there was a threat of rain and thunderstorms in

the area. That is the thing about Interlagps, you just don't know.

They have been a lot a rain affected races, just a few minutes ago, the

ground was wet and we were expecting a wet free practice to, but it has

now dried off, we will still look at the clouds and I am sure we will see

a smattering of rain at some point. The cars on the circuit, it can be

dry at the beginning of qualifying and wet at the end, the teams will

not take any chances letting any showers hold them back? They have a

restricted number of wet tyres as well so they cannot just run and

destroy the tyres, they will be thinking about the race situation. I

hope it is either dry or completely wet, not the in between stage. We

saw how tricky it was earlier on, it has been slippery and a lot of

building work going on here, a lot of people complaining about bust on

the track. Max Verstappen at the start of the session, coming around

the long corner, then we have Sebastian Vettel coming into the

last corner and just as he turns in towards the exit he loses the rear

end and has to open the steering and run a bit wide and across the grass,

no harm done in that situation but a small error. That is one thing I

like about this circuit, it does punish you for any small error.

There are no massive run of areas to secure yourself. Lewis Hamilton half

a second quicker than anyone else but he locked up going into the

first corner, it is cambered their so the inside left is very unloaded

and easy to unlock. Finally we have Kimi Raikkonen in the Ferrari

locking up as soon as he hits the break, 110 mph into turn four and

the hybrid system acted aggressively the, skidding through the gravel. No

damage in that situation but clearly this circuit is not in perfect

condition. Looking like he is trying to plough a field there. But he is

used in rallying. We were talking about Lewis Hamilton, half a second

fastest at the end of free practice one but Nico Rosberg won the Mexican

Grand Prix with a fantastic atmosphere, he is determined to win

every race for the rest of the season. He has to get the momentum

that, he has been dominated by Lewis Hamilton 's season, especially in

qualifying but he has had four pole positions on the bounce and a strong

race win in Mexico. 12 months ago he was a dominant person here in Brazil

so he wants to continue with that and he was to get his mind settled

going into 2016 as a title contender again. One

the man who did win the title again this year was Lewis Hamilton, Nico

Rosberg as we said one the Mexican Grand Prix and he is back up in

second place. The Finnish drivers cannot stay

apart on the track. We know Mercedes sewed up the constructors' title in

Russia. Ferrari are second. Force India office but could still be

vulnerable to Lotus and Toro Rosso. In the pit lane today we have Tom

Clarkson and Jenny Gell, what is it like? It is 25 degrees, a little bit

of moisture in the air but before we start talking about whether I to

say, there is a famous saying in Formula 1 that it is only Friday and

that has applied particularly today. Walking up and down the pit lane you

can see how much the teams were gearing towards 2016 during first

practice this morning. Mercedes ran an ester, even Red Bull have a new

internal combustion engine which is geared towards next year. It is only

this afternoon that we will see a majority of the teams working on the

weekend ahead. However there are some issues with that. The weather

here is definitely changeable, I have spoken to the FIA, they say

they expect showers on and off through this session so it will be

hard to predict exactly what tyres to be out on at which time, you

would want it either dry or wet and it looks like a few drops come down

now in the pit lane it will be mixing it up the whole way through.

There we can see Daniil Kvyat having a look with his engineer and Adrian

Sutil and Alexander Vert, he announced week he was retiring from

motor racing. Hanging up his habit and in typical fashion, it was a

clear decision by him. This weekend he is here for Williams and this

could be a good Grand Prix for Williams, they were fast here last

year and Felipe Massa is a local favourite, winning hit twice and

Valtteri Bottas and Kimi Raikkonen, that is one of the big stories of

the weekend because they are still battling for fourth place overall in

the championship. You can bet your bottom dollar that Massa will be

spurred on by the Brazilian fans. He has such a huge selection of fans,

worth mentioning Felipe Nasr here, it was here that he was announced as

a driver for Sauber going forward before this season, how has he

applied himself? He had a good run at the start of the season but he

dropped off a little bit and his performances were not quite

continuing with that momentum. But Sauber and their car did not

develop, that was the issue. They started extremely well in Australia,

a big surprise but were not able to continue that momentum. We can see

Felipe Massa there, this it is exactly what we were talking about,

starting to rain a little bit. The drivers are used with this around

Interlagps because it changes quickly. In fact, Bottas means

between lakes and the weather comes and goes, qualifying has been

delayed before, we are used to it. There are two macro legs either side

of the circuit, if it rains here it does rain heavily and you get a lot

of rivers and aquaplaning and things like that but right now the rain has

started again and there are little wet spots so it is in that critical

condition where you would not necessarily go out on slicks but you

cannot go on intermediates either. Before this session starts to tell

us about your morning, an interesting moment in the pit lane?

There was an interesting moment but I knew nothing about it. I was

released into Jenson Button and he was not happy about it. He was

released and I was released, the mechanic that released me released

me when it was clear but Jensen was a bit quicker, I could see nothing

in the mirror and I blocked him fairly savagely to be fair and we

got a fine for it but it is not a big deal really. There was no big

drama. Happy with performance? Good I think, a new track for me, quite

complex as well, a lot of undulations and blind corners and

technical bits. It is FB one, it is the worst session of the weekend

because there is no rubber down, but we had a testing programme and it

was the first time in a long time I have been driving and we have got

through a clean programme. First time since Monza so that is a long

time. Good to be back in the car properly but a good session. You

have to go back to the garage and learn about this, we will not keep

you, just very briefly, still spitting with rain, what can we

expect? I think we will wait a bit before it goes one way or the other,

if it dries up all gets wet, then you will see cars on track but this

could be tomorrow and also Sunday. He will go up to the commentary

box, we have live coverage of free practice to coming up from

Interlagps, enjoy. The COMMENTATOR: Here we are, in

Bottas getting towards the end of the World Championship, two rounds

to go, Friday practice two where traditionally we see the long run

times and what performance the teams will have in the Grand Prix for

Sunday. Also a taster of the qualifying simulation. As we have

been hearing in the build-up to this session, there has been rain. It

started raining about half a narrow go and then it stopped and now it

has started again. It is the intermittent sort of rain that has

affected so many Brazilian Grand Prix over the year. They're having

some great moments,, Ayrton Senna on the way to his first-ever victory in

his home Grand Prix, a rain shower towards the end and he was stuck in

gear that day and a cramp in his shoulders to deal with. More

recently, 2008, was Hamilton finally winning the world champion by

passing the Toyota on the last corner of the last lap of the last

race of the championship. This misty rain that suddenly drifts in with a

huge part of the story there, Toyota had gambled staying on the dry

weather tyres and Hamilton was on the wet tyres and it was a question

of whether it would rain more not as to whether he would win the World

Championship. He did, and the rest is history. It is just free practice

and we will see how things evolve over the next 90 minutes, if you

were not with us this morning, to see the first practice session,

Lewis Hamilton hit the ground running, he may have had a few

personal issues of circuit in the build-up to this Grand Prix. With a

road accident in Monaco where he lives, no one hurt but some damage

to his very valuable supercar, some other cars as well. Hamilton

admitted yesterday that he has been burning the candle at both ends

since winning the World Championship, letting his head down

a bit but it has not slowed him down at all so far. 1:13.543 was his time

after 28 laps of running in free practice one. That was comfortably

half a second quicker than Nico Rosberg. Talking to a number of

photographers out on circuit this morning, all of them commenting on

how crisp and aggressive Hamilton looked a particularly in the low

speed corners, of which there are a number at Interlagps, the 2.6 miles

circuit. Raikkonen had a spin this morning, meanwhile, Jenson Button

and Fernando Alonso, driving for the McLaren team and their boss, Eric

Bailly a is with Tom Clarkson now. Let us talk about the weather, you

are talking to an Englishman, what is the forecast for this session?

Rehab a few showers floating around so as you can see there are some few

drops. -- we have a few options. The macro you are not changing your

programme? It is too unpredictable at this stage. We watch the radar

and see what is going on. Let us talk about your team, a difficult

Grand Prix in Mexico, can we expect better things this weekend? Won yes,

it can only be better, everybody is working hard and they are very

focused on what is happening now and for next year so we can expect

better reliability here. Down on power and at altitude, the long hill

coming up to the start and finish straight, are you expecting decent

things, can we think about points? We do not want to think about

anything now, no wrong expectations. These last two races, they test

sessions for McLaren or are you trying to get results, are you

really chasing Sauber in the championship? Won for the last 18

races? It is like I said, we are working on making our car better, we

are just trying to keep focused on where we should be. Where should you

be next season? We will see, much higher. Tom with the McLaren boss

and Jenson Button was saying yesterday in the official press

conference, the driver 's press conference, that he believes that

next year they will be fighting at the front if not necessarily winning

races which is quite big talk. He was 13th in practice this morning

and Alonso in 16th, talking about great moments here at Bottas over

the years, the 2005 Grand Prix where he won the world title, Alonso, for

the first time in the Renault, he came in and climbed on to the nose

of his Renault car and just exploded with joy, a very emotional moment

for him, the culmination of a lifetime 's work.

It has been dreadfully since about half an hour -- drizzle. The track

temperature is 32. But was not enough rain falling to make it fully

damp. No evidence of shininess on the racetrack. I drove back to

Austin airport with Alan McNish and it was raining hard and I was asking

how you can tell why Macleay tunnels are and how you are likely to Aqua

plane. It is an amazing science. Your eyes seeing the water on the

racetrack is huge. Anything shiny is not good when it is wet because that

suggests there is standing water and slippery. The rain just coming over

the top of the bridge to the commentary box. If it drips, as it

is, and it is probably going to be spots of rain, you would definitely

be on the slick tyre trying to get as much of your running done as

possible to get a bit of a feel, especially on the soft tyre, because

the experience on the soft tyre this year is the rule. Last year it was

overheating on the surface of the tyre itself. I can see them getting

onto that tyre quite soon. Rosberg heading out on circuit on the medium

compound Pirelli tyres. He has all sorts of pressure sensors on the

front of that Mercedes. This free practice session is a three our

opportunity for all of the Formula 1 team to try out some new things and

do some measurements. We often see the cars coming in in a Day-Glo

paints to measure the aerodynamic flows battling over the car and the

surfaces and they can learn a lot from that. As Tom Clarkson was

saying this is a great opportunity with these last couple of races. The

championship and the constructors decided. A great opportunity for

them to try something new with an eye on next season. There will be a

tyre test with the latest development tyres for next year

including the new ultrasoft which sounds exciting. It will primarily

be a qualifying tyre but the idea is to make the strategy a bit more

variable on the Saturday. Yes. The ultrasoft will be faster and more

critical than the current super soft. Maybe similar to what we had

as the super soft last year. I do not think it is going to be radical

because they cannot go too far but you might have options with

different teams running different options to the other. One hour and

26 minutes remaining. Very early stages. Grosjean still some way off

the pace we saw this morning. Coming close a number of times to getting

that kind of breakthrough result that Verstappen has had. So far the

Hollywood result for Sainz has not come through. I do not think he

means the brakes are not working entirely. I think he means the

efficiency of the brakes are not very good so he does not get the

massive deceleration you normally get when you come up to the hairpin.

150 kilograms of force onto the brake pedal. You have a celebration

at quite a few corners but if you do not get the friction on the panel,

on the desk, on the tyre, on the ground, then you feel it because the

line is very narrow when you get to the apex especially at the moment

because the circuit seems to be sloppy this morning with a few bebop

having off track excursions. 5.5 G of deceleration as they hit the

brakes. Just slowing down from well over 200 mph. Five G of deceleration

hitting the driver squarely on the chest. Just under a second under

half of braking. That how efficient the braking is. That is why it is so

important if they not working properly, like for Grosjean.

Remember you can get in touch with us if you are watching live. That is

a replay, exactly the same as what happened to Max Verstappen this

morning. Just as he is about to change up to the next gear the rear

of the car becomes unstable. It is basically a replica of what happened

to Verstappen this morning. Talk to me about the lack of grip budget so

this morning. That has been a fair amount of building work been going

on. The pit lane is particularly dusty. Out on circuit, is it

normal... We are part of the City here or there is a lot of smog in

the air and a lot of stuff coming down and settling. Yes, but this was

a new tarmac surface last year and significantly quicker than the

previous. It seemed to have a lot of grip at very high temperatures. They

were still one seconds slower than last year in free practice. The

circuit did not seem to have the grip. It seems to have become more

slippery as it has cured since it was brand-new at the beginning of

the 2014 weekend. That work in the background has not helped because

they put up new buildings and I am sure the dust is settling. It will

get faster. 13.5 was the fastest this morning. It does not appear to

be the condition it was 12 months ago. The fastest time from this

session last year was one minute 12 by Rosberg. Some way of that.

Normally that left-hander is flat-out and Bottas got a bit of a

turn as he got into the corner. Even changing gear is destabilising the

cars enough so you are seeing some big oversteer moments. Tom Clarkson

can bring us up on the conditions. Conditions have not changed.

Williams say they are expecting this, not quite wet, not quite dry.

Situation a lot whereas on the pit wall is going to have to react to

track conditions. I was walking the track last night, and there is a

slightly dirty facade into like Russell this year, the new paddock

is not finished and where most racetracks have Astroturf here they

have badly read cards which of her car runs wages going to end up going

all sorts of places, particularly if it is wet. It seems slightly messy

and I wonder if they might be dragging some of that find mud onto

the racing line. It is a slightly raised beds of turf on the inside of

the racetrack. Nico Rosberg goes fastest. He was purple sector

fastest all the way through. Maldonado seem to get in the way of

Stevens, who was giving his hand signal. Suggesting he was not happy.

When you see the situation normal in terms of the weather, I have been

here for a six-hour race and it gets a fine mist and you think it has to

rain but it does not. If it doesn't rain is very heavily. It is the

opposite seasons here so this is bring coming into summer as far as

Brazil is concerned whereas the rest of us in the northern hemisphere are

heading into winter. Mercedes winner last time out in Mexico are leading.

He was fastest in every session in qualifying and race here in Brazil

last year, beating Lewis Hamilton to chequered flag. Here is Raikkonen's

radio. No grip on the tyres. That was a common complaint this morning.

Jenson Button was very vocal about it. It went from no front grip to no

rear grip. It seems to be a knife edge whether you can make this tyre

work. It will be interesting when they go to the soft, that will

definitely give them more trip, it is whether they can keep the tyre

without losing the performance. Raikkonen saying he has no grip on

the tyre. The engineer would say if you had no grip you would fly off

the racetrack so you must have some. What does he mean? Not as much as he

wants? You never have enough or you would be flat-out groaned every

single corner. Keep working on your tyres. There is nothing on the radar

yet. How far is the rain? That is what Ericsson asked. 36 points

between them but it is pretty lopsided in the favour of Nasr. This

is a weekend and Abu Dhabi as well where Ericsson would like to finish

the season on a high with in that Sauber team. In the best possible

shape with ten points scored in Australia on debut but since then he

has gone on to score in other races as well as Sauber has been

overhauled by other teams, still managing to score a few points along

the way, but still the bulk of the points in the early races when a

number of teams are struggling with reliability. Plenty of you are

getting in touch. David says, can McLaren turned things round for next

year? The chassis seems to be good but can Honda provide the engine or

is it all lost? You used to be a Honda test driver. Do you see those

golden days coming back? That is the big question. That is what McLaren

and Honda are asking themselves. It is not through lack of effort but it

is a big uphill challenge. It is about the chassis. Williams are

pushing ahead. You have Ferrari, Red Bull are trying to come back and

Mercedes the leaders and already one big step ahead in terms of looking

at what they are doing for 2016. It is big catch up. The gap... Lewis

Hamilton is chasing Bottas. He has Ricciardo behind him. In front of

Bottas there is fairly empty track through to Verstappen. Hamilton

dropping back from Bottas having been given that message. Hamilton

has backed off to let Ricciardo go through. Still less fine mist hangs

in the air in the distance the normal view of the skyline of Sao

Paulo which back in the 1970s was the fastest-growing City in the

world in the days when someone was coming through and winning the World

Championship, the first Brazilian to put Formula 1 on the map in this

country, and in his wake came many great drivers to Ayrton Senna and

today Felipe Massa, a two time winner of this Brazilian Grand Prix

but never a world champion. He came so close in 2008. Was burgers out on

circuit and on the attack. Mercedes have been looking good this morning.

Turning corners exactly as they wanted. Also getting the power. You

saw the others having a little bit of oversteer. Nico has that car

planted at the moment. You have to have good acceleration. This is an

incredibly steep incline all the way up to the start and finish straight

so if you lose one coal-mac an hour it affects you and you can lose four

or five tenths. 205 mph, that is how quick they are going. We are at an

all to Jude nothing as high as Mexico City but still as high as 800

metres -- altitude. Spinning a bit more quickly. I need another pair of

gloves. An unusual request in the middle of a session. Maybe he needs

to go to a department store. Plenty going on behind in Formula 1

at the moment, news this morning that the FIA has launched the

process, a tender process for a commercially available engine from

2017 onwards and that will put the cat among the pigeons. This is the

latest move in the stand-off between the governing body and commercial

boss Bernie Ecclestone on one hand and the engine manufacturers,

particularly Ferrari and Mercedes on the other. In a suffix balladry

message from Daniil Kvyat. I am not sure Jenson Button would agree, he

has done the fastest time in the first and second sector. He is

pulling all the way up the hill to the start and finish line and it

will be fastest in the session. He goes quicker by a 10th and a half,

saying speed across the finishing line, Hamilton does a 1.13 point

364, just under a 10th of a second than he managed this morning in free

practice. That is despite rain and the other things going on. 33

degrees is the track temperature, 28 degrees of air temperature. Talking

about the engine tender process, an interesting development and it plays

into the whole story of Red Bull and what engine they will be using next

year. It will have to be some form of interim engine as far as they are

concerned, whether it be Renault without a badge or a Honda, likely

to be the form of the two but they would be a prime customer for this

commercially available engine from 2017 onwards. It is a big and little

push as Grosjean attacks into the hairpin corner, that is another team

in that area where they are not 100% what is happening because there is

talk they will be taken over by Renault but the deal does not seem

to have been clarified yet. For Red Bull, they need to get it sorted out

because it has been a long time and deadlines have been pushed back

again and again, until next week, that is the last physical moment

before they have two create so many things on the car's development. How

much rain is going at the moment? A very different view from Daniil

Kvyat, although he has set the his own personal fastest final sector so

the rain he said was affecting the middle sector in particular seems

not to be an issue because the Russian driver has just gone fifth

quickest with a 1:14.619. We should talk about the development engine on

the back of Ricciardo's calf one of the big stories coming out of this

year, not only the breakdown in relation ship between Renault and

Red Bull but Red Bull have not brought any developer and steps to

this engine which has gone backwards from 2014. This is the first

occasion in which a development Renault is out on track using most

of their available development tokens. Ricciardo and his team boss

Richie and horn playing it down yesterday, they they expected it

would be a 10th or two tenths of a second only in terms of gain. It is

interesting that the development has been in the internal combustion part

of the engine am not be power unit, which means not mucking about with

the turbo which means they have some reliability issues in that area.

They have used 12 tokens for the season on it and I think they would

hope to have a bigger gain than a couple of tenths of a second but

they have delayed the introduction of this engine for a while. But Red

Bull, they have it in one car but not the other side Daniil Kvyat is

on the previous specifications, they are spitting the strategy a little

bit because there is a gain of maybe two tenths of a second but you have

to take the grid penalty to have the engine in the car. Daniel Ricciardo

saying the reason for him to take it is that they did not expect to be

that competitive here and that rain is forecast throughout the weekend

and as we mentioned earlier, anything can happen though it is one

of those places where you might get lucky with the safety car and start

further back might not be the end of the world. Only one car out on the

circuit, you have a view on this Renault and Red Bull situation.

Something Daniel Ricciardo said yesterday was that they were hoping

this new Renault upgrade will have better drivability which will give

it better fuel consumption because it is one of the more thirsty

engines on the grid at the moment and that would help them particular

in Abu Dhabi, which has a high fuel consumption rate. The news came

through from the FIA about the engine tender process, bids have to

be in by the 23rd of November which does not leave a lot of time and

makes you suspect that there have been people ex-pressing an interest

in it, what has been the reaction in the paddock in the last couple of

hours? People I have spoken to think it is cynical, a political game and

hopefully what will happen is the manufacturers, Ferrari, Mercedes,

Honda, will turn around and say that they wanted it to become a 12

million euros engine a year, let us compromise because at the moment it

is costing 18, I think that is what the endgame is here personally. Very

interesting, and our and nine minutes to go in this session so

everyone on their early run. They lock-up from Romain Grosjean on his

penultimate outing as a Lotus driver, he is moving to the new Hoss

team coming in next year that will be powered by Ferrari. -- Hass,

everything that they are legally allowed to use for Ferrari will be

on that car so they are reflecting to start out of the reasonably high

competitive level. Grosjean is particularly excited by the new

challenge awaiting him. At the same time, a little emotional leaving a

team where he has pretty much spent his entire Formula 1 career. Billy

no mates on the circuit at the moment, nobody else out on track and

Hamilton Hummer Rosberg and Vettel are the top three. He has done quite

a few laps as we get another replay of him locking up coming into the

right-hand hairpin. Romain Grosjean is currently done 13 laps on this

medium tyre which at this moment, the way the track surface and the

grip level is, the rubber on the track is about the limit of it.

Pastor Maldonado sitting there in the cockpit of the other Lotus

watching his team-mate circulating out on circuit. Fernando Alonso has

just gone out in the McLaren Honda, Maldonado from Venezuela, not 1

million miles away from here, to the north, well to the North. It has

been a run of races where fans of his from Venezuela can easily

reached from Austin, Texas, to Mexico City and Brazil, they are

spoiled for choice really. Venezuelan Formula 1 fans at this

time of the year. Alonso on the circuit, looking at the document

issued. There are a few very light drops in the pit lane but nothing of

significance on the radar so it should not get any worse. Looking at

the document issued the FIA at the beginning of the race weekend,

bringing everybody to date on how many engines have been used in all

the different components of the engine as well, I saw this morning

that Honda have now used in 11 internal combustion engines, the

maximum is four in the regulations so some time ago, they took the view

that when the rules were changed on penalties but they would max out and

take penalties as and when appropriate. Really focusing on

development. There was little they could do otherwise if they did not

focus on that, they did not have the reliability and it is difficult to

gain reliability through the season with how it is structured at the

moment and they had little alternative to be honest. Alonso

talking about underperformance, what did you make about those comments? I

thought they were pretty fair actually. In general, over one lap

he can deliver a bit more than he has done and there have been quite a

few occasions where I was not totally convinced that he was not

looking at other things and he needed to refocus on the job in hand

which is apparently what he has done right now. One of the things he

might have been focusing on? Other drives and seats and where Elsey

could have gone. Sports car racing and the Le Mans 24 hours, which will

clash with the new Azerbaijan grand break, Alonso has had a reasonable

season, he has stepped up against Jenson Button as you would expect

but it has been difficult for both of them considering they former

world champions and they have both had to be incredibly patient with

the problems that have come their way with the Honda hybrid turbo

engine. Interesting to see what Honda's reaction is to this engine

tender process because if it does get some momentum behind it, they

might be interested to consider that. The Ferrari crossing the start

and finish line, Sebastian Vettel, 327 K pH, five case lower than the

Mercedes, just before he hits the breaks into Turn 1. Riding on board

here, coming down to turn for where Kimi Raikkonen spun this morning and

you can see the front wing, they have two front wing options here,

subtle changes to the main plane and the little flaps but they have been

trying them back-to-back with both drivers and both of them have gone

to the latest evolution of it and finding it gives them just a bit

more stability and grip on these tighter corners here on the infield

sector. Bottas has become the first man going out on the soft compound

tyres met he is heading out on circuit. Ferrari have also brought

some updates to the rear bodywork of the car as they look to pile on the

rear end downforce and stability which is fundamental as far as

Sebastian Vettel is concerned, it is one of the things that makes him

fast and he relies on it, the more of that they can give him, the

faster he goes and from Singapore onwards they have made great steps

in that car and really started to get the performance equally

importantly, which is what he had that victory in Singapore and has

gone on particular strongly. And our and three minutes remaining on the

clock. Vettel just improving their on that last lap. We are heading

towards the time where they switch over onto the soft tyres and go out

and do their qualifying simulation runs. What are you seeing in terms

of track conditions, how has it improved since the start of this

session when you were standing in the rain? It does not seem to have

got wetter which is the main thing but in terms of improvement, it has

not improved from this morning. That suggests they still roughly have the

same grip levels as this morning. Interesting is what happens, Bottas

already doing the fastest first sector of anyone, four hundreds

quicker than Lewis Hamilton who had the previous quickest in those first

couple of corners, that is only really Turn 1 and two, then it

flattens out for three and down to Turn 4, this is the middle sector

and the hairpin and this left-hander where we will see the benefit of

that. A little bit of rain on the way. Sebastian Vettel saying some

rain on the way, a right front lock from Valtteri Bottas, pushing hard

on those softer compound tyres. 20 of sparks coming out from underneath

the floor of that Williams Mercedes, he is the fastest of

anyone in sector one and a personal best in sector to so I think he is

heading for top of the Pops here. He will want to switch over onto the

soft compound tyre. Coming down through the undulation and across

the start and finish line, by three hundredths of a second he goes

faster than Nico Rosberg, than Lewis Hamilton. Alonso is off the circuit

but back on. That is one second faster than Valtteri Bottas did on

the medium tyre, so the delta seems to be about one second. We will get

a better read when more people go out, smoke coming out of the back of

Alonso's car and he is going back slowly, not sure if it was a driver

error but more of a technical issue. I have no power. Half the power. I

think he has less than that. Definitely smoke coming out from the

back of that engine, a tell-tale blue haze beginning to drift out of

the oversized exhaust pipe. Some flames in there, that is it, it

looks like it has detonated itself inside. Not that much smoke coming

out now that he has turned the engine off, maybe it was flames from

a few will being burnt. I think that is the end of his session, he has

gone off the track, the last part of the track but no way to get back to

the pits from there. Said they had 11 combustion engines, they might be

heading number 12 here, if it was a goals difference on a league table,

they would be looking pretty good but 12 is not a good number to have

in Formula 1 when the goal is four. He trudges away from his car,

leaving it to the right-hand side of the racetrack and this wide open

expanse of grass, a few cameramen pointing the other way, not looking

at where he is. I think this might be a replay, Jenson Button coming

out of the pit lane and Alonso just changing the gear. Stop the car,

stop the car at the side of the track. It was an instruction from

the pits, and now a red flag to recover that car and it is a

dangerous situation just as he comes out of the right-hander. Yes,

unfortunate that we have the red flag, was not able to get it further

away from the track and closer to the marshals but frustration again

for Fernando Alonso, he has had some great moments here at this Bottas

circuit but the mechanics, a rather resigned air as the marshal waives

the red flag here, they have had such a hard season, the McLaren

mechanics. They are going to have a hard winter

as well, trying to boost their performance ahead of next season. We

have a red flag. Only Bottas has done a qualifying simulation run on

the soft compound Pirelli. A lot more speed and performance to come

in the remainder of this session, provided it does not rain again.

Hamilton is second-fastest on the medium compound tyre. The -- Vettel

in fifth. How much dry running is Fernando

Alonso going to a total? We are beginning to get wet. Talking to the

Pirelli engineers I was asking why are the track conditions so much

worse this year than last year? That is something Allen touched on. Two

reasons from them. The ship of the stones. Last year a freshly laid

surface and this year they are much rounder. Second reason, they are

saying there are various corners around the track where the asphalt

was damaged during the race last year. Could not tell me why but I

wonder if you have an inside line. I do not. I know it was roughly about

one and a half or two seconds faster from the previous year for us in

terms of performance and grip level was huge, tyre wear was much less

than before. I did not think there was any damage to the track. I

cannot really help you. In terms of the roughness of the stones it

actually is... It has a lot of bitumen contained and it is very

smooth anyway so if there was any roughness it was quite small even

when the track was laid under they have taken that edge off it must be

a very smooth surface on top. A strange cameo here as they clear

away a lawns or's car. Fernando Alonso sitting on the wall staring

at his car. Waiting for somebody to pick up. His body language says

complete and utter dejection. Yet again his car like him down.

Christian Horner, the team boss of Red Bull Racing, joins us. Typical

Brazil conditions at the beginning of this session. What did you get

from it? Depressed, having listened to you describing Fernando Alonso

walking away from his car. Obviously the weather, it started to spit a

little bit in the pit lane a few minutes ago. Hopefully that is going

to clean up and we can get back into the session quickly. Running two

different engines what did you learn about Daniel Ricciardo's

development? Is it along the lines you expected, one tenth up to two

tenths? It is difficult to judge at the moment. There is still a bit of

fine tuning going on. It is within the noise of about a 10th at the

moment I would say. Since the last session the FIA has put out this

tender document for this commercially available engine for

2017. How much is that music to your ears? It is a very interesting and

positive step as far as we are concerned because it is saying that

the FIA are determined to get a cost-effective powerful engine as an

alternative introduced into the sport. One can assume that this is

leverage for perhaps a change in engine regulation. When are we going

to know what you are going to be doing for next year? That seems to

have been delayed in terms of your decision and announcements? You are

quite right. There is only one race left so I hope to be able to tell

you by then. There's a lot of work going on in the background. We are

honing in on something but unfortunately I am not at liberty to

say exactly what that is at the moment. Can we assume it is going to

be in a similar line to where you are now? You can assume what you

like! Going back to the engine tender process, in terms of the

reaction within the paddock there's a feeling in some quarters this

might be a bluff to get Ferrari and Mercedes back to the negotiating

table but there is intent behind it surely? Absolutely. The FIA have

gone out and said the tender is happening. I think John was prepared

to negotiate with the manufacturers of they had lowered their price

below what it was and we have been offered engines at over 30 million

euros and it is completely nuts. This weekend where do you feel your

guys are? It looks as if you are struggling a little bit in the first

and third sector but the middle sector could be where you could

gain. It is a little bit like Mexico trying to find the balance between

how much when we strip out of the car to be quicker in sectors the map

and one whereas Sector 2 theoretically is our strongest

sector so we are running less downforce than other cars trying to

find the balance. At the moment in these conditions the cars and

drivers have been performing well. Finally, returning to your next

steps, you are going to get your engine decision when you can and

presumably it is flat out throughout the winter to make it in time for

the first test in February and the first Grand Prix in March, does that

mean Christmas is cancelled? Christmas is never cancelled. It

just might be busy. It may be a working Christmas. If anybody can

pull this off it is our team. They have demonstrated their ability of

the year to work to tight deadlines and develop and this is no

different. I am certain that every person is absolutely up for the

challenge of this and will be there. Here is hoping you find some potent

engine under your Christmas tree. Good luck. Christian Horner, the

boss of Red Bull Racing. Interesting he said the team are working to

tight deadlines and used to that. It is a very tight deadline. Making

sure it is implemented into the car in time for the earlier tests in

2016. That has been one of over the years, very tight deadlines and also

the way they do their development, constant small development through

the season. Not many people at Red Bull are going to be given time off

at Christmas to relax. The session is due to recommence at 2:39pm,

which is just under two minutes from now. Remember to send your questions

are nice you are watching the replay. The man asked if the current

regulations are holding teams like Force India back? Force India have

the best power unit in the back of their car so it is probably helping

them. It is very difficult unless you have a manufacturer to HEV

victory in the current regulations. Richard, will Haas be trundling at

the back? I do not think so. Given the amount of collaboration I think

they will do well in addition to which they have a solid budget and a

proper business plan so I think Haas should be somewhere around Sauber.

Paul, do you think Renault have been distracted by the development of

their formula E engine? I do not think so. It is a sideline in

comparison to their Formula 1 engine. They released a lot of

people when the V8s were frozen back on the day and they did not have the

technical developments and they were lead to the party looking at the new

engines. Robert, do you think Ferrari will use their veto on the

regulation changes needed to accommodate these commercial engines

that Christian Horner was talking about? There's a fair amount of

nodding going on in the commentary box. They have the right to use it

and if they do it will get fairly messy. This is the early process in

a complex battle that is going to carry on in the next few weeks

because it is going to have to get done by the end of this year if it

is going to pass. Anything for the following year has to be unanimous.

By the end of this year majority will carry it. Is Interlagos much

greener? From someone in the Netherlands. Historically, yes.

After last year with the new track resurfacing you would say no but it

seems that have gone back in terms of its grip levels from where the

tarmac surface was led down the first time. Hamilton heading out on

circuit on the soft compound tyres. We are your place for Formula 1 this

weekend. Live throughout. We have seen a second off lap time

improvement from the medium to the softer compound tyre from Bottas.

Let us see if anybody gets more improvement as we get towards the

simulations. Track temperature about 32 degrees, a temperature 28.

Raikkonen got stung a little bit by that read flag because he had gone

out on his soft tyres and started and the red flag came out so the

peak might have gone from that tyre. Lewis Hamilton sparking all the way

down the street to Turn 4 and up through six and seven into one of

the slowest corners of the circuit. This is about 35 mph. It feels like

you are riding a bicycle. Hamilton This is about 35 mph. It feels like

is about a 10th of a second slower at this stage. This looks good for

Rosberg. He was faster than Hamilton in every session here last year and

took the race win. Very frustrating for Hamilton who had a spin when the

team asked him to do and that extra lap and there was a heated debrief

after that, as I was after Mexico when he wanted to do something

different from his team-mate. Keep an eye on Rosberg. Can he take a

second or more of his time? Is this enough to bushes team-mate into

second? It certainly is. 1.35 seconds quicker. He has phoned more

on the softer compound tyre, the switch from the medium to the soft.

Yes, he was much quicker in that middle sector. He was a 10th quicker

in the first sector but in the middle sector he gained the time and

he was able to deliver what is the fastest lap of the weekend so far.

Quicker than anyone in free Practice 2 last year if my memory serves me

correctly. I have it here. Two temps slower than last year but the

conditions on the circuit are not exactly ideal. -- tenths. Hulkenberg

has always been strong around here, he got his pole. He was battling for

the win with Hamilton a few years ago when they collided, frankly.

Ricciardo makes an improvement. Raikkonen had a spin this morning

and has gone fourth fastest in the Ferrari. Sainz also out on the soft

compound tyres. He has not been here before. His team-mate Verstappen,

this was one of the Friday mornings that Verstappen did last year, so he

has driven a Formula 1 car around here for 90 minutes and I watched

carefully what he got up to last year, Verstappen, and he was

spinning getting into Turn 1 and locking up the early part of the

session, but as they are around a half went on you saw him dialling

himself in the car in and he looks like a veteran by the end. Let us

get an update on the conditions. It is a strange one. We always knew it

was going to be a little bit of rain and then it would clean up and come

back again and the showers would continue. One of the teams are

trying to raise as much of the programme is possible because the

weather forecast shows there is a band of rain around and it is due to

get heavier. I am watching the cars come round Turn 1 which is one of

the best places to stand and it is getting heavier but I think it is

going to swing in and out as we go through the remainder of the

session. It is about timing your lap right. If you want to perfect it.

Where you are is where I was watching Verstappen last year. A

fantastic place to watch a Formula 1 car. Right over your right shoulder

at 200 mph braking to 60 mph. Intensity could be increasing. Turn

1 is a fantastic place to watch a Formula 1 car, if you ever make the

journey out here to enter I strongly recommend getting a seat somewhere

around Turn 1. Just by the bridge that we are next to buy the

commentary box. They assess the aerodynamic effect

of the new parts, the little bit rough and ready from Felipe Massa in

the Williams, on the soft compound tyres, twice a winner here and has

been on pole position before. Down in ninth at the moment. Too much

curb on the inside of that right-hander and it sends him to

wide. You have to take curve but if you take too much it can upset the

car a lot, especially at the moment when the grip level is not quite

there. Sebastian Vettel kindly giving us a wave. And interesting

pattern on the hand of his glove, presumably giving him grip but it

looks like a skeleton costume from Halloween on the palm of his glove.

Here is Verstappen. The car is very difficult to drive. Decode that? It

means it is inconsistent, when he breaks and turns in, he is not sure

what the car will do, then when he loses traction and grip it is very

snappy and he can't predict what the car is going to do very well. In

that position, you are always better trying to get one problem rather

than two or three, get one problem, whether it be understood, as Nico

Rosberg has been complaining about in this session and then you can

work on one solution to that one problem. It is inconsistent, it is

hard to make it work around here. Vettel had a go at a second lap but

was a 10th slower than his first run on the soft compound tyres. It does

not look as though the fastest lap is the second one, we have seen a

number of races where you need to go for a second or sometimes even a

third timed lap to get the sweet spot with the tyres. This circuit

you put a lot of tyre energy into it, how when you go back on the

throttle you get a lot of talk and a lot of energy into the rear tyres

and then this long right-hander so the front right and the right rear.

That is in at the hairpin at turn eight, coming through the uphill

right-hander, looks to have got the cup on the outside and look to car

but on. That corner translates as orange in Brazilian Portuguese. The

one that takes about 130 pH leading into it. That is turn six, that

corner, the translation is horseshoe. You have to try and

missed the first apex to get the second one and as you pop up over

the hill, you go onto the breaks. You can see the skid marks, if they

go back, you cannot see it on this shot, but he gets onto the outside

curve so we are running on board with him, a little bit of overseer

and yes, he loses it just as he comes up over the second bit. He

said the rear felt so loose, Verstappen managing expectations, he

said a moment ago that the car was difficult to drive and he proved it

for us. That is a corner where you are a bit better to have some

understeer because it is more consistent and stable and then you

can get on the brakes consistently for this next corner, you cannot

have too much understeer or you will lose time but better with an

understeer balance than oversteer on that one. Do you want one more time

to lap? Won definitely not, the tyres have gone. Confirmation of

what we were saying, it is a 1 lap tyre in qualifying, that is

important information as far as qualifying is concerned tomorrow. It

is logged down by the engine is logged down by the engineers and the

other thousands of data points from every time the car goes out on the

circuit. Tremendous amount of information transmitted by the cars

to the pits and back to the factories as well, in real time as

they go around this highly sophisticated Formula 1 cars. The

staff and despite his spin is a 10th quicker than his Toro Rosso

team-mate Carlos Sainz. As far as I can see, we have not had

confirmation that Toro Rosso are sticking with these two drivers next

year. I think everyone would be astonished if they didn't but there

has not been an official confirmation. Their team principal

will be in a press conference after this one so it will be interesting

to ask. The chances of anyone else in those two seats is minimal but

Red Bull have not officially confirmed their engine programme for

their teams so from that point of view, there are some questions, the

least of their problems is announcing their drivers when they

still have to get the other parts of the jigsaw into place. Give me your

overview on what you have seen, you have a keen eye for a young driver

and help out where you can in developing young drivers and you

know what you are looking at, how do you expect Sainz and Verstappen

after their rookie years? Very different personalities and that

comes through in their driving, Sainz is methodical in how he

drives. He builds up to things which is not the Latin temperament you

would perhaps expect from a Spaniard but he goes through processes and he

delivers very consistently. We saw that after the accident in Russia

and he came into the race and normally would have finished well in

the points if he had not had a problem and that was one of the best

examples of the potential he has going forward. However, on the other

side we have Max Verstappen who just drives by the seat of his pants and

it is all enthusiastic, fantastic overtaking manoeuvres and round the

outside in Belgium, where you take a shop intake of breath and he is the

one who will probably take most of the headlines but in terms of taking

the points at the end of the season, you have a steady hand with Sainz so

I think they have two very good characters to develop for the future

gives cannot have two gung ho guys going at it, you need that

counterbalance and I think they have got it nicely. Verstappen has two

fourth places and more points than Sainz in the championship, 47, just

18 for Sainz, when you look at the year in those cold and hard terms

and results, Verstappen has had a far better season but what extent,

races like Russia where Sainz was coming through the field and got

your attention, what about those in the paddock and the teams, how would

they pay attention to that? Watch out for the front lock-up. You can

try break map five. Both Sauber drivers talking about locking on the

medium tyre which is significantly easier to lock into these hairpins,

basically different rake settings that you can achieve. Just coming

back to the Toro Rosso drivers, I think it is exactly about the

potential that they can deliver. Helmut Marko is the adviser to Red

Bull in terms of drivers and I think he will always look at someone who

has the speed and capability and not just necessarily the results but

what he believes is the future. Jenny is at Toro Rosso, what

information do you have? I want to play a game, you can see an Max

Verstappen's car, they are about to change the rear wing and if you look

at the back at the red part of that car, you can see it is quite

different to the other side of the garage. If I get a look at Carlos

Sainz's car on the other side, you can make out the rear wing and the

red parts of that rear wing, the bottom one is totally different

angle and it looks very different even from the naked eye, most people

could spot the difference but what does that mean for the drivers?

Round here it is a trade-off, as we are hearing from Christian Horner

earlier on, between sectors one and three which are the acceleration and

top speed sectors of 210 mph and sector to, the middle part which is

all of the tight and twisty corners. It is about trying to get

the downforce and drag balance, the difference between the two rear

wings but also the front wing as well and it is to what extent you

can get the correct trade-off. At the same time, not putting too much

energy into the tyres. That is not good, the problem on the up shift

from second to third gear for Nico Rosberg, the winner of the Mexican

Grand Prix last time out. We do not have a graphic on screen, it is on

the steering wheel, but he is coasting back into the pits at the

moment. There are a lot of second to third up shifts in that Middlesex

but he is staying in fifth right now as it comes into the pit lane so it

does not appear he can shift down. He is in 50, you would normally be

in first or second gear. There have been if your reliability issues for

Nico Rosberg at Italy and Russia, the Russian race in particular

costing him what looked like a race victory. He has driven straight

through the pits, presumably they have done some form of reset as he

went through the pit lane. They cannot sent anything to the car, you

can only have they cannot sent anything to the car, you can only

have data, it is illegal to have any data from the pits to the car.

Feedback, shift looks OK. No, definitely a problem. Nico Rosberg

came through the pits, not for the gearbox problem but to do a practice

start. We will hear and see what the shift from second to third looks

like, he pulls in the clutch and is ready to go. Allen back into

neutral. It is a long process going on here. Firstly, second gear, third

gear, sounded all right. It did. The interesting thing for me was how

quickly the engine revs dropped down and how low they went, using the

talk of the engine to accelerate and get away from wheel spin. It is a

very complex procedure, now, the driver has to adjust the clutch

settings, he cannot be informed by the teams of the optimum setting

before the race starts, that is a regulation that came in at the

Belgian Grand Prix in August. It looked like a public good start but

it is only good if it is better than the car behind, it is all relative.

Basically a good start is under three seconds, 2.7 or 2.8 seconds.

For zero to 100. Ideal. Most people switching onto the long runs. We

have used soft tyres for the top five cars in the field, outdoing a

long-running, simulating the early laps of the Grand Prix on Sunday,

the only odd man out is Valtteri Bottas, who is using a set of the

medium compound tyres. Also, Felipe Nasr and Alonso and Ericsson, who

are further back. Fernando Alonso is still parked at the side of the

circuit where he seemed to have a problem with his power unit, losing

power and then stopped three quarters of the way round the

circuit. Valtteri Bottas, I would not be surprised if they slip their

strategy at Williams, Felipe Massa using the soft and Valtteri Bottas

using the medium tyres. 30 minutes to go, they can probably do ten or

12 laps on this tyre and have a feel for switching over later on. A

similar way that Ferrari do as well. The work continues in the Toro Rosso

garage, that Jenny was telling us about, switching the rear wings etc.

Sainz and Verstappen. That is Max Verstappen's car he already had that

incredibly heavy looking rear wing, to Mendis and at every downforce.

The fact there is so much work going on with those cars indicates how

hard Toro Rosso, as a midfield team, is still pushing. They brought three

different front wings to be single for Grand Prix which is an

indication of how serious they are in trying to compete with the others

in the midfield area. They are currently on 66 World Championship

points, just five behind Lotus in the constructors, plenty to aim for.

Target lap times are low 16s. That is the target lap time for Lewis

Hamilton to give you reference, the fastest lap of the race last year

was a 1:13.555, so that is quite a bit off but the beginning of the

race they were doing 15s so it is roughly within the same ballpark.

That is impressive, you did that without reading it, you must have

committed that to your memory in the bath before coming out here. Thank

you, you are giving my secrets away. Half an hour to go and we have

roughly half the field out on the circuit at the moment on this warm

but misty November day here at Interlagps in Brazil. We are about

25 kilometres from the centre of downtown Sao Paulo, near the

cemetery where Ayrton Senna is buried. A legendary figure here, the

three-time world champion and winner of this grand free on a couple of

occasions. Certainly in those days there was plenty of excitement and

plenty of work on Jenson Button's car, a plastic sheet covering the

front area. I think they will be spraying some paint on the front

wing, to protect the suspension pick-up points and the tyres so they

can see what's the car went on to the circuit, the ever flowing

through the front wing and where the paint would go, if it is all over

the suspension from when it was sprayed on you would not get much of

a feel of what the air was actually doing. Is that a job for the junior

guy on the team, does he have to clean it all up? I do not know but

it is something that they all do and they were doing it with Lewis

Hamilton with the S duct, tying the bulge cover on the nose, they

sprayed a lots of flow viz on that in F P one this morning. It is

something they do to do in their singer Leighton and their computer

fluid dynamics as well. The target lap time is what the two

Mercedes are doing at the moment. Turn and nine, the downhill

left-hander. A positive camber corner but to go into it with a lot

of acceleration from second to third gear and then set into the camber of

the corner but of you lose the rear a little bit on entry it can build

up momentum and bring you around. Is everything OK? Can you check the

rear wing stability? What exactly happened? Locked up, Mr the apex

slightly. It was a very lazy turn in. It looked as if it slowly came

round on him. It was slightly strange. Not the normal thing that

happens there because normally you get it going on in the entry to the

corner as you turn on but this was as you came down when normally it

sets into an understeer. A very pretty shot of a couple of birds

with the bird's eye view. Getting out of the way swiftly. As their

white Williams came spinning out of control towards the two birds out on

the circuit. Second to third gear. Went down to second as he lost the

rear. Slightly strange. He is asking for an understanding of this ability

of the rear wing and if it is producing the consistency of

downforce expected. Vettel is on the medium compound tyre. He has

switched onto it. Ferrari are doing a back-to-back with Raikkonen on

used soft tyres and Vettel has gone back to the city was using it

earlier or medium compound tyres, or similar life, so they are going to

get a direct performance of the two. That is the kind of work that goes

on in this practice session. In addition to the qualifying

simulations we have already seen. Just drifting out on that last lap.

Did you have traffic? Not particularly. He has now they are on

the racetrack. A better lap that time from Rosberg. Both CDs drivers

having a slightly off lap. Raikkonen was also will lapping at 1.167. The

rear tyre, inside shoulder, heavy training. That is Hulkenberg that is

complaining. He has done ten laps on that soft tyre. It is inside edge

which is usually wheel spin and that is coming out of these corners. Not

the corner like Turn 3. It is the wheel spin that comes out of corners

like this one, the last one. Daniel Kvyat also doing that at this stage

of the game. Also using medium compound tyres. Soft compound tyres,

sorry. The lap times beginning to come down a bit for Mercedes.

Hamilton felt he was quicker than Rosberg in the race in Mexico but

could not get past him and he said the same thing about this race as

well as Ricciardo almost loses the car, putting it out of the garage

and the tail swinging round. The pit lane is very dirty and dusty. This

morning you saw plumes of dust and that went into the tyres and that is

one of the reasons that may be they struggled a little bit once they

came in for the first stop. The tyre absorbed all of that dust and dirt

and they could not clean it so well because it was in gained a little

bit too much into the rubber and switching onto the second set of got

a little bit cleaner and that will continue as the pit lane cleans up.

Vettel has come back in and gone on to the soft and Raikkonen has gone

on to the medium compound tyres. A switch around. They have done that a

few times. I thought they would have done more running. If they felt they

were getting close to the end of the 12 laps, and starting to lose the

consistency of the tyre... That is a little bit early in real terms. You

would expect it to be a little bit later than that. It is possible

because last year it was us all of time period when they would be doing

the changeover, laps seven, 26 and 50 when they did the pit stops. The

tyres have not changed that much from this year to last. The rear

tyres have been made to last a bit longer. Otherwise the compound in

has been pretty much the same. It will be interesting to see what

happens next year. Pirelli are expected to carry on. The settings,

problem with engine braking. When you are going into the corner that

is so that you can adjust how much the engine holds you back. That is

in conjunction with the hybrid and the brake pressure which has a

distribution front to rear. There is a lot of different dynamics acting

on that. The engine braking is something that the driver feels

helps him pivot the car is specially in those tight corners. We have seen

quite a lot of tyre degradation. Appleton's soft tyres have done 12

laps and his last lap, he picked up the pace, the lap before that had

been slower -- Hamilton. Maybe he gave the tyres a bit of a breather.

Very little to choose between him and Rosberg on pace. A bit of a

deceiving picture from Hamilton that last lap. It looked as if we were

having degradation but it will be back again. You cannot do that

during the Grand Prix. You have to keep going flat out all the way

through. I have seen that in the long run is when they will do a slow

-ish build-up to their pace, race pairs, and then they will have a

soul that and cool the tyre down and go again which gives them a better

understanding of what the tyre will be able to do in the race. Something

they develop and the other teams do not miss as I really do that but

they feel that gives them a consistent reference. --

necessarily. The Ferrari of Vettel is competitive. Pretty much

identical pace of the two Mercedes in front of him. His tyres are three

laps fresher but that is not a huge amount Soviet leader Mark is looking

reasonably competitive. -- so the Ferrari. Vettel said he had to be

cautious. You cannot really trust Nicky loader when he says things

like that. How do you see the gap? Or seven tenths unfortunately

because we would like to see Vettel on the front row but I do not think

we are going to see that. Mercedes can turn up their power unit and it

is not just the engine, it is the hybrid system, for qualifying.

Ferrari can only do it to a lesser extent than Mercedes. Yes, they have

improved and we saw that at Monza with extra horsepower and they will

able to use that especially in qualifying but it is certainly not a

match for the Mercedes still. Not such a good lap from Vettel. I think

we are going to see reasonably high tyre degradation. A classic

situation. Three stops last year being the way to go with the

uncertainties over the weather adding an extra dimension. The cloud

base has cleared a little bit over in the distance. I can see the

skyline is a little more clearly. One or two shadows beginning to

appear on the racetrack. We saw Fernando Alonso braking down with

what looked like very much an engine problem hourly. Flames coming out of

the engine. Yes, it was a little bit obvious isobars but I have spoken to

the team to try to work out the issue. Vettel whizzes past me to go

right on the soft tyres. They said it was a hardware issue. The engine

is going to have to go back to haunt for them to looked at it and work

out what has gone wrong but I asked if it was an old engine and they

said it had raised in Austin. It has only raised in Austin and if that is

the first outing since then that is not many kilometres since then. I do

not think the guys at Honda will be very pleased and the guys that

McLaren even less so. That is also one of the spec four engines that

those used in Austin which is the latest specification and he had a

problem with that towards the end of the race and dropped back so ready

that particular engine had some issues. He felt confident that they

had fixed or alternatively it would not happen again but clearly it was

not ideal for Fernando Alonso. 18.5 minutes remaining in the session.

Rossi is out on the circuit. He is ending the year as a Formula 1

driver. That has always been his dream. Opening the next year he will

get the chance to retain that seat but there is a awful lot going on

behind-the-scenes. These sporting director and the team principal have

both handed in their resignation, not happy with the direction that

Stephen Fitzpatrick, the owner, is taking the team. Neither of them are

seeing very much about it, sworn to secrecy about why they are leaving.

One of them was an employee and the other the team principal. A little

bit of a unpicking to go on within that team. No word from the owners

about future direction who is going to replace them or how the team is

going to be managed and run. Awfully we will get something before the end

of the season to clarify the position -- hopefully. Felipe

Massa's brother, local hero. Very close to winning a world champion.

He was world champion for about 20 seconds. He has done 17 laps on

those tyres. Rosberg, Hamilton, Vettel the top three. The two

Mercedes are still going strong. They have done 17 laps on the softer

compound tyres and their lap times are in the low 1.17s. Vettel also

using the softer compound tyres. Six laps more life on it. Did he say it

feels like chewing gum? No, he said I do not like doing that. Why would

he not like doing that, not one to tell his engineer over the radio

what he felt the tyres are doing? Is that keeping your secrets to

yourself? He has put a gigantic flat spot on the front like a 50p piece.

I think it is keeping a bit of information to himself exactly where

years with the lap times at the moment. He was a little bit slower

due to the lock-up coming up in to the lock-up coming up into turn ten.

You did not lose too much time but he has maybe put a flat spot into

the rear front tyre. These tyres are not doing too badly. The lap times

have only gone off by half a second. Because of that long pool, you can

see the incline... We are going to extend the stint a little. Daniel

Ricciardo is on the medium tyre. He has done 18 laps. Coming up into the

top corner, it is a long pool up the hill so if you have less fuel on the

car it helps you significantly with acceleration so it can count about

the tyre drop off. That is the picture with Vettel also circulating

and still quicker than the two Mercedes. That is interesting. Ross

Burke having had that right front lock-up has gone off the racetrack

-- Nico Rosberg. Where is he? That is the last corner. Coming out of

the bottom of the hill heading up to Turn 12. Taking that are just 80 mph

and running wild. -- worried. He comes through the hairpin before it

is a flat right-hander. As he turns into that, he comes through. It is

difficult from this angle to see what happened but it looks as if he

has turned on and locked up. He locked up the left front and run

forward into the run-off area. This is where Raikkonen famously went

behind that barrier because he thought he could get up the other

side and he had to do a U-turn and come back behind there. One of the

support races, Rosberg doing a bit of wheel spin across the grass. That

is on the replay because he is back into the pits. The computer tells us

he has gone back out on circuit again.

The performance of the Red Bull, a fair bit of degradation for them

looking at that. Around half a second over the course of that lap.

Looking at Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton, they were pretty close, a

little bit up and down to read across it but towards the end of the

stint, I would think Lewis Hamilton is edging ahead of Rosberg even

though Rosberg is fastest overall. It looks like Hamilton was a bit

more consistent on the long run. All of the long run work has been

focused on the soft firework but now they are out on the medium tyre,

they will not get a lot of work on it but one thing you have to say, is

the Ferrari looks quick in race trim and in Sebastian Vettel's hands at

least. He has been matching them if not slightly better throughout that

long run although his tyres are a few laps fresher. It is hard to

calculate. I did not hear what he said. I think it was his visor.

Rosberg back in business having switched on to the medium compound

tyres, meanwhile, Felipe Massa, winner of this Grand Prix back in

2008 comes across the line to complete another lap, this time in a

Williams and it is quite quick. The medium compound tyres have done 12

laps, that is interesting because it tells us about the crossover.

Hamilton with a good lap. Look at the amount of pick-up on each side

of the racing line as they come through here, that will be a problem

on Sunday. Here is Verstappen. My tyres are dead, the front and the

rear. Verstappen has done 23 laps on that set of tyres, but that is a

good situation, if the tyres are dead and it is front and rear which

means they are going off in a balanced way, big understeer and

then the rear comes round as he exits the corner, they know where

the drop-off point is but it is not like a car then goes into one

particular balance with understeer. Marcus Ericsson with another big

lock-up, was Hamilton did that this morning and it is a very easy corner

because of the camber of the road and the lateness of the breaks into

the corner. It looks like the medium compound tyre is performing

reasonably well in comparison with the soft. They will work out their

fastest strategy but I do not think we will see as many early stops as

we did last year. Last year was soft and then they went to the medium and

changed back to the medium or the way through to the end of the race,

they only used the soft tyre for qualifying and the opening stint of

the race. It could be a different picture with the amount of work

being done on the soft tyres, it does look reasonably quick. Rosberg

with a 1:16.5, competitive with what he was doing earlier on. Should be

quite an interesting race from a strategy point of view. Not much to

choose between them, it is about working out your fastest race as

always and we could see variety here. I hope so, that is one of the

reasons they wanted more degradation but it might also add variety as we

see the raindrops falling on one of the puddles left earlier on. Less

than ten minutes remaining in the session as Felipe Nasr, the

Brazilian driver of Middle Eastern extraction, the year ago he was

announced as a Formula 1 driver, stepping up from GP to their, where

he had won a race and Joe Liam Palmer will be making that same

step, he was the GP to champion last year and it has taken him an extra

year to get into Formula 1 but he now has the opportunity with the

Lotus team for next year. The we are affecting them to switch to Renault

but we believe they will honour through the drivers are, how do you

think Parma will do as a driver? Piller wrote I think he will do

well, he has done a good job on Friday mornings, I hope the car will

have a bit more finance than it did this year, especially if Renault, as

anticipated, take over the team. They will then be able to build for

the future but he has Pastor Maldonado, and experience the make,

very fast sometimes and sometimes underrated in terms of speed but

Parma will just be making sure he delivers when it comes to the races

and I am sure he will stand up well against Pastor Maldonado. It will be

interesting, another interesting talking point for next season, the

two Manor Marussia cars up for grabs in terms of empty seats left for

Formula 1, most teams got the business done early, some of them

very early and some drivers are on longer contracts as well as we look

at Sebastian Vettel, back onto the soft compound tyres and still

lapping in the 1.17s so consistent performance from him and Ferrari, we

have to keep an eye on them on race day. If they can get in front, they

can stay there. Jenson, we would like to repeat the front wing

comparison so please box this lap. That is a good idea. A comparison

that they clearly did earlier on where they did not totally get the

results expected out of it so they will do another thing with seven

minutes to go, they have done the majority of their long run anyway so

it is about using the time to the best benefit considering they do not

have any information from Fernando Alonso with him going out so early

in the session with an engine problem. The headlines from this act

session, not a particularly typical Brazil picture here with Rosberg

half a second quicker than Lewis Hamilton, which is pretty much the

opposite of what it was in free practice one this morning, then

another half second back to Sebastian Vettel, so that'll is a

full second slower than Rosberg in qualification trim, a quick lap from

Rosberg in the conditions but behind them is more what we expect to see

from Brazil with very close lap times, it is a short lap, just 72

seconds so the margins between the cars are very tight and that is what

you have behind Vettel with Raikkonen, Ricciardo, Bottas,

Grosjean, Hulkenberg, all separated by fractions of a second but the

margin for Mercedes in single lap qualifying looks awesome. Hamilton

did it this morning, half a second ahead of Rosberg who was also a bit

ahead of third place, being able to deliver that round here which is not

what we want ideally, we would like to see Ed a lot closer and generally

it is, the mid-area is very close as usual, Vettel at 13.3, Raikkonen

13.5, Bottas 13.6, Hulkenberg 13.7, and Daniil Kvyat in 90s 13.8

alongside Felipe Massa. Another word from Tom Clarkson with five and it's

to go. It is interesting to discuss the qualifying comparison within the

intra- team battle at Mercedes, although on the face of it, these

last two races look like a dead rubber because the champion should

settle but the needle is as intense as ever, 2016 begins here and the

last few races Rosberg has been on pole position and he said something

revealing, he said that the pendulum seems to have swung back in his

direction over one lap but I don't yet know why and that is what he

will be working out over the next couple of races, why he is now

quicker than Hamilton over one lap and work on that over the winter and

take it into next season. I think there is an element that sometimes

when it is running for you it runs for you and you have to maximise it,

if you try to analyse too many things you get caught up in the

technicalities of it. There is a certain mad of qualifying that is

pure emotion and confidence. It limited amount is technical

analysis. I think he has found something in terms of setting the

car up which works better for him in qualifying, as we heard yesterday on

five live Formula 1, which kicked us off across all the platforms, it is

fine margins between the two drivers throughout this season, very few

occasions has there been a big margin to one driver or the other

but Hamilton has led the way this year with 11 pole positions compared

to lassi is and where it was Rosberg who had the upper hand but

qualifying between them seems to be so important. Last year, Rosberg was

able to give him a run for his money through to the last race because of

his qualifying platform, he knows he has to get that back and he seemed

to have gone about it in the right way with four consecutive pole

positions which is why the needle is back between them. Their

relationship is back to being tetchy and cold as it was at points in

2014, it started this year being quite friendly, I would not say

cuddly but they were borderline amicable and now you can sense a

real tension and frostiness and from Rosberg's point of view, he has to

capitalise on that and keep it going through 2016 to make Hamilton feel

unsettled as he did for much of 2014. Yes, it is about delivering

that on the surface, that is the man he has to unsubtle, Lewis Hamilton.

A strange sport, Formula 1, the man working in your team with you at the

end of the day is the guy you are trying to work against, unlike

football, rugby, where the concept of teamwork is about all for one and

one for all. You need to work with your to make but ultimately you need

to be Tim just as much as anyone else to win a World Championship,

the comment of Nico Rosberg said he would prefer not to talk on the

radio about how the tyres are feeling and give too many details

about how they are dropping off and cooling of the relationship now that

Hamilton has won the championship but at the same time, Rosberg has

found a little bit of something. Two minutes remaining in this free

practice session ahead of the Brazilian Grand Prix, the

penultimate round of this year 's World Championship, as I looked out

from the commentary box position, I can see the sun almost beginning to

poke through the clouds, the Hayes is lifting in the distance, Jenny,

how are things evolving for this weekend? There is still drizzle

around us so it is one of those typically strange sessions in Sao

Paulo where one part of the track has little bit of sunshine and

another a bit of rain. Any information at all on degradation. A

lot of traffic at the moment so it is difficult to pick things out, we

are good on degradation, almost identical to Nico. Hamilton talking

about the traffic there, just say the weekend and the weather we are

expecting, we expect a thunderstorm tomorrow, that could have a lot of

rain in that case which would make qualifying interesting but that will

clear by Sunday where we expect another dry day, some changeable

times ahead but the thunderstorm could make things interesting for

qualifying. Interesting message between Hamilton and his engineer,

the engineer saying they are good on tyre degradation, comparable with

the other clock on Hamilton was a bit harder in Mexico on the tyres

than Rosberg and that was one of the things that led to that rather

controversial episode where they pitted Rosberg as a safety measure

onto a new set of tyres because they had the gap to the car behind,

Daniil Kvyat, at that point but Hamilton tried to resist when they

called him into the pits because he was trying to win the race his way

but it was 18 situation. That is what led to that, Hamilton being

just a tiny bit harder on the tyres than Rosberg in the first place. All

fun and games, particular in the Mercedes setup. The flag man on the

start and finish straight unfurling his chequered flag, leaning across

the barrier and waving it now at the Williams of Valtteri Bottas and

Carlos Sainz comes across the line now after the chequered flag and

they will have to come into the pits at the end of this lap and that is

it for free practice two which gives us Rosberg fastest by almost half a

second from his Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton. Sebastian Vettel

almost a second off in qualifying pace but in long one pays, the

Ferrari looking competitive. Raikkonen is fourth and then the Red

Bull of Ricciardo. It looks as if Vettel and Raikkonen are going to be

competitive but it is all about the Mercedes. I am interesting to see

what Bottas and Massa can do because historically they are not on the

pace but can deliver on Saturday mornings. We have seen the Ferrari

team, which have seen tasty in Friday free practice to and then

disappointed as the weekend has gone on, we will see how things are, but

looking at the back of that Ferrari, Vettel has a lot of new

parts on the back of that car to help with the rear end downforce. A

sequence of tiny little dots on the back of the flora. 1012 of them in a

row. Leading up to the rear wheel on the back of the Ferrari. -- ten or

12. A simulation pit stop going on. He sweeps into his pit box. The

fastest man this afternoon. One of the many practices the mechanics do

over the course of the weekend. They will be out there in the morning

being told by the sporting director. Just like everybody else, trying to

get their pit stops as fast as possible. Williams have been giving

a better way, losing about a second to their main rivals, something they

intend to work on. Rosberg from Hamilton with Vettel in third place,

Raikkonen, then Ricciardo, Bottas, Grosjean once again in the Lotus

looking for a strong end to his career. Massa two times a winner in

ten. Errors very much the former man of the moment in the Force India was

11. Maldonado was 12. Button and Ericsson. Marussia may have a bit of

a leadership crisis but seem to be running OK. A pretty clear picture.

It looks very much as if on single lap qualifying performance it is

strictly an in-house battle between Hamilton and Rosberg but Ferrari

could challenge in the race on Sunday.

This morning Lewis Hamilton build-out have the second gap over

Rosberg and why did forward and Rosberg has done exactly the same to

him. You will not have to miss a thing because we have every session

live across the BBC. We will be looking back at some of the classic

Grand Prix. That will also be on iPlayer. In Scotland, you can press

the red Button. Thank you for your company. Goodbye.