Free 2: Jenson Button quickest in rain struck Monaco

Jenson Button has ended the second practice session fastest for this weekends Monaco Grand Prix, as the Monte-Carlo street circuit was struck by miserable wet conditions after the sunshine of the morning session. Romain Grosjean came home 2nd, with Ferrari’s Felipe Massa 3rd just ahead of his team-mate.

With the threat of rain looming over the Principality, the majority of the drivers immediately left the pits as the session got underway. Kamui Kobayashi led out the queue of drivers, as the dark clouds bubbled up in the distance. The Japanese driver set the first timed lap of the session, with a 01:20.617 before his team-mate Sergio Perez went top with a 01:18.800. Michael Schumacher, Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso all momentarily went top along with Spanish Grand Prix winner Pastor Maldonado.

As the threat of rain become more and more threatening, Jenson Button and McLaren wisely switched to the super-soft tyres. This enabled the 2009 World Champion to shoot straight to the top with a 01:15.746, as many other drivers’ also opted for super-soft rubber. Kamui Kobayashi was running of the super-soft tyre when the rain arrived, which inevitably forced the whole field back into the pits. Frustratingly for the drivers’ the track was both too wet for dry tyres and too dry for wet tyres.

With the track not wet enough for the intermediate tyres yet, some drivers braved the confusing conditions as he session wore on. However, the rain began to intensify and thus the drivers once again retired to there garages as the track became wetter.

However, the conditions failed to deter the drivers from the Monte-Carlo street circuit, and it wasn’t too long before the intermediate tyre was seen being used. As the track got steadily wetter, more and more minimal mistakes were made. The majority of these mistakes were confined to the turn 5 ‘Mirabeau’ chicane, where Bruno Senna, Pastor Maldonado, Sergio Perez and Heikki Kovalainen all ran wide on the increasingly greasy track surface.

Naturally, the times didn’t change throughout the remainder of the session, as Charles Pic was even spotted exiting the pit-lane on the full wet Cinturato tyres. With rain a potential threat for qualifying on Saturday, the running completed today in the wet could prove highly useful when the drivers’ return to the Monte-Carlo street circuit on Saturday morning prior to qualifying in the afternoon.

Follow me on Twitter - @AndyYoungF1