Vettel stays on top in second practice

Felipe Massa also showed good form in fourth, suggesting that like Hockenheim last weekend, this race will be a Red Bull versus Ferrari battle.

It was Red Bull that led the way for the vast majority of this session, with a close battle that saw team-mates Webber and Vettel repeatedly swap the top spot.

Vettel finally worked down to a 1m20.087s on the super soft tyres, half a second quicker than Webber. Alonso then beat the Australian by 0.013 seconds 15 minutes by the end to secure second. Fourth-placed Massa was 0.899s down on Vettel's time.

Renault maintained its promising morning form with rookie Vitaly Petrov an impressive fifth. His team-mate Robert Kubica was seventh behind McLaren's Lewis Hamilton.

Nico Hulkenberg (Williams), Jenson Button (McLaren) and Michael Schumacher (Mercedes) completed the top ten.

The session was very low on incident, aside from trips over the kerbing and asphalt run-off areas, but there were mechanical problems for both Force India's Adrian Sutil and Lotus's Heikki Kovalainen, who spent much of the afternoon in their teams' garages.


Pos  Driver         Team                    Time              Laps
 1.  Vettel         Red Bull-Renault        1:20.087            33
 2.  Alonso         Ferrari                 1:20.584  + 0.497   34
 3.  Webber         Red Bull-Renault        1:20.597  + 0.510   36
 4.  Massa          Ferrari                 1:20.986  + 0.899   33
 5.  Petrov         Renault                 1:21.195  + 1.108   33
 6.  Hamilton       McLaren-Mercedes        1:21.308  + 1.221   30
 7.  Kubica         Renault                 1:21.375  + 1.288   37
 8.  Hulkenberg     Williams-Cosworth       1:21.623  + 1.536   41
 9.  Button         McLaren-Mercedes        1:21.730  + 1.643   33
10.  Schumacher     Mercedes                1:21.773  + 1.686   31
11.  de la Rosa     Sauber-Ferrari          1:21.809  + 1.722   38
12.  Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth       1:21.844  + 1.757   36
13.  Rosberg        Mercedes                1:22.039  + 1.952   28
14.  Kobayashi      Sauber-Ferrari          1:22.212  + 2.125   37
15.  Alguersuari    Toro Rosso-Ferrari      1:22.469  + 2.382   43
16.  Sutil          Force India-Mercedes    1:22.507  + 2.420   22
17.  Buemi          Toro Rosso-Ferrari      1:22.602  + 2.515   38
18.  Liuzzi         Force India-Mercedes    1:23.138  + 3.051   36
19.  Trulli         Lotus-Cosworth          1:24.553  + 4.466   37
20.  Glock          Virgin-Cosworth         1:25.376  + 5.289   35
21.  di Grassi      Virgin-Cosworth         1:25.669  + 5.582   32
22.  Senna          HRT-Cosworth            1:26.745  + 6.658   33
23.  Yamamoto       HRT-Cosworth            1:26.798  + 6.711   32
24.  Kovalainen     Lotus-Cosworth          1:27.705  + 7.618    5

All Timing Unofficial