Brazilian GP Friday practice 2019
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By: Geoff Creighton
Summary
Status: Stopped
And that does it for our Friday coverage - check back in with Autosport and Motorsport.com for post-practice reaction. 
Final FP2 order: 1 Vettel, 2 Leclerc, 3 Verstappen, 4 Bottas, 5 Hamilton, 6 Magnussen, 7 Ricciardo, 8 Raikkonen, 9 Albon, 10 Sainz, 11 Hulkenberg, 12 Gasly, 13 Giovinazzi, 14 Kvyat, 15 Perez, 16 Grosjean, 17 Stroll, 18 Norris, 19 Russell, 20 Kubica.
Replays show Kvyat had an electrical shutdown of sorts entering Turn 12, which is what seemingly caused him to slide off into the barrier. Going to be a long night at Toro Rosso.
"Jump out, jump out, there is fire at the back," Toro Rosso tells Kvyat. He complies. Replays show it was a fairly minor thwack against the barrier well off-track at Turn 12. Red flag now as the fire extinguishers get to work.
We'll have a much more precise rundown in the post-Friday practice analysis, but from a first look Mercedes has a slight advantage in race trim. But tyres aren't dropping off, and this current gap wouldn't be enough to overtake the Ferraris if they qualify and start ahead,
Bottas has logged a pretty handy 1m12.8s at one point during his race run, and has now switched from softs to hards - immediately running wide at Turn 1 after a lock-up.
Gasly reports "engine problem, engine problem", and it indeed looks like a fairly classic blowout. He moves across to the pitlane exit and parks the car, his session coming to an end.
Leclerc is told his "target laptime is 1[m]13.9s" on this set of mediums. He's just done a 1m13.7s, which compares quite favourably to the Mercedes cars' soft-tyre runs.
Verstappen has repeatedly complained of an engine braking problem in this session. "It's again happening now," he says during the current long run.
Verstappen is also doing a long run on softs, while Leclerc has had a used set of mediums re-fitted.
The two Mercedes cars have rejoined the track, presumably on long-run programmes now. Usually you'd expect them to split compounds, but both have gone out on softs.
Current order: 1 Vettel, 2 Leclerc, 3 Verstappen, 4 Bottas, 5 Hamilton, 6 Magnussen, 7 Ricciardo, 8 Raikkonen, 9 Albon, 10 Sainz, 11 Hulkenberg, 12 Gasly, 13 Giovinazzi, 14 Kvyat, 15 Perez, 16 Grosjean, 17 Stroll, 18 Norris, 19 Russell, 20 Kubica.
"Just the steering wheel is a big problem," Kvyat reports, suggesting that it's still pulling to the right as it did at the start of FP2.
Albon is nine tenths down on Verstappen, and looks likely to end the session adrift of his fellow top-team runners, who have all already concluded their qualifying simulations.
Verstappen is last among the frontrunners to fire in a soft-tyre lap, and it takes him to third place, 0.134s down on Vettel. Hamilton improves but stays fifth.
"It was not a very tidy lap, but the problem was the first lap. It's okay, I know what I can do with these tyres, let's focus on the long run," Vettel tells Ferrari.
Vettel strings together a cleaner lap and is 0.021s quicker than Leclerc, as Ferrari settles into a 1-2. Hamilton has nearly had a Turn 1 run-in with Gasly and still cannot get a problem-free lap in on softs.
Vettel actually didn't improve there either, and he also looked to have had a Mercedes get in the way in the final sector. "Valtteri was just sitting there!" Hamilton says on the radio.
Hamilton is up on Vettel's pace after two sectors, but comes up on Bottas in the very end, gets a little held up and calls off the lap.
The track has sprung into life yet again, as many drivers are beginning their qualifying simulation runs. Raikkonen moves up to fifth on softs, ahead of Sainz and Magnussen.
Russell's the first driver to try the soft tyre, and uses it to improve to 16th place, 2.2s off the pace.
Verstappen has pitted after completing his run, and has been replaced by Russell as the sole driver out on track.
Verstappen says "it's quite slippery" but wants to give a few more laps for data gathering. He's told not to push because the tyres are cold.
"This rain's not on the radar, it's light enough that it doesn't show up, but obviously it's bad enough to adjust the track," Stroll is told. That probably explains why we've gone from 18 cars out on track to just the one - Verstappen's.
Half an hour down, an hour to go. Hamilton does another flying lap on the medium set he'd started the session on, but remains four tenths off Vettel's pace.
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