Gutiérrez tops wet free practice in Singapore

Mexican leads the way in Singapore

Esteban Gutierrez

Photo by: GP2 Media Service

Esteban Gutiérrez has started his weekend in fine style by taking the top spot in this afternoon's rain affected free practice session in Singapore, leading the way as the circuit started to dry in the closing minutes ahead of Fabio Leimer and Stefano Coletti.

The Mexican set the best time of 2:14.339 with just four minutes remaining in the session, leaving the possibility of an improvement from anyone in the field: unfortunately with everyone looking to move up at the same time, there was not enough space for the clear lap needed to top Gutiérrez's time.

A huge downpour before the session had transformed into light drizzle by the time the drivers took to the circuit for the first time, but had left its mark in the form of large puddle all around the track and a lot of leaves, which all required a lot of laps to clear up.

Gutiérrez, his teammate James Calado, Johnny Cecotto and Luca Filippi set the pace as conditions slowly improved, although most of the field took a trip into the exit road at turn 8 or ran around instead of between the kerbs at turn 10 as they all looked for the limits on track.

When the clock ran out Calado, Cecotto, Giedo van der Garde, Simon Trummer and Rio Haryanto were just outside the top three positions, while title rivals Davide Valsecchi and Luiz Razia ran very conservative sessions to finish P14 and P20 respectively: it's unlikely that they will be so kind to their rivals in this evening's qualifying session in just a few short hours time.

Source: GP2 Series