» 2013 Brazilian GP: Rosberg finishes on top of the Friday timesheets

The weather didn’t improve much in the few hours since the opening practice session, with heavier rain dominating proceedings as Friday’s running at the Brazilian Grand Prix was brought to a close.

FP1 pace-setter Nico Rosberg again headed the timesheets, finishing up two-tenths of a second quicker than Sebastian Vettel, who is gunning for his ninth Grand Prix win in a row this weekend.

Mark Webber’s final Friday in F1 saw him endure yet another KERS failure, although he still ended up third-fastest behind teammate Vettel by a few hundredths of a second.

The Australian finished ahead of Heikki Kovalainen and Lewis Hamilton, the latter of whom has seemed to struggle so far this weekend.

Drivers spent most of the session sat in their garages in order to save tyres in case they’re needed during the rest of the weekend, which is forecast to be impacted by rain. It wasn’t until the final twenty minutes when cars started to head out on the Interlagos track and post semi-representative lap times.

Kovalainen finished an impressive fourth-fastest, while Lotus teammate Grosjean was tenth.

The two Toro Rossos also showed well, continuing their fine form with both Jean-Éric Vergne (sixth) and Daniel Ricciardo (ninth) finishing inside the top ten.

Nico Hülkenberg again proved his worth, earning another top-ten result in his Sauber.

Contrastingly, there’s been nothing impressive out of the Force India garage this weekend so far. Adrian Sutil again finishing 15th-quickest while teammate Paul di Resta finished two places in front of him. The pair sandwiched the Williams of Pastor Maldonado.

The wet weather meant the no driver was able to head out on track with Pirelli’s prototype tyre that’s been brought to Brazil to gain data ahead of the major engine and chassis regulation changes next year. Quite how this will impact each teams’ final design work ahead of the 2014 pre-season remains to be seen.

2013 Brazilian Formula 1 Grand Prix – Free Practice 2 Session Times:

	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Laps
1.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes AMG Petronas F1W04	1:27.306		12
2.	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing Renault RB9	1:27.531	+ 0.225	10
3.	Mark Webber	Red Bull Racing Renault RB9	1:27.592	+ 0.286	18
4.	Heikki Kovalainen	Lotus F1 Renault E21	1:28.129	+ 0.823	13
5.	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes AMG Petronas F1W04	1:28.147	+ 0.841	9
6.	Jean-Éric Vergne	Scuderia Toro Rosso Ferrari STR8	1:28.405	+ 1.099	11
7.	Felipe Massa	Scuderia Ferrari F138	1:28.540	+ 1.234	9
8.	Nico Hülkenberg	Sauber Ferrari C32	1:28.560	+ 1.254	20
9.	Daniel Ricciardo	Scuderia Toro Rosso Ferrari STR8	1:28.739	+ 1.433	20
10.	Romain Grosjean	Lotus F1 Renault E21	1:28.891	+ 1.585	12
11.	Fernando Alonso	Scuderia Ferrari F138	1:28.928	+ 1.622	10
12.	Esteban Gutiérrez	Sauber Ferrari C32	1:29.049	+ 1.743	17
13.	Paul di Resta	Force India Mercedes VJM06	1:29.174	+ 1.868	11
14.	Pastor Maldonado	Williams Renault FW35	1:29.717	+ 2.411	13
15.	Adrian Sutil	Force India Mercedes VJM06	1:29.783	+ 2.477	7
16.	Valtteri Bottas	Williams Renault FW35	1:30.425	+ 3.119	15
17.	Sergio Pérez	McLaren Mercedes MP4-28	1:30.748	+ 3.442	8
18.	Jules Bianchi	Marussia Cosworth MR02	1:31.061	+ 3.755	18
19.	Giedo van der Garde	Caterham Renault CT03	1:31.118	+ 3.812	16
20.	Charles Pic	Caterham Renault CT03	1:31.165	+ 3.859	15
21.	Max Chilton	Marussia Cosworth MR02	1:31.211	+ 3.905	19
22.	Jenson Button	McLaren Mercedes MP4-28	1:31.770	+ 4.464	6