Sebastian Vettel tops second practice for the European Grand Prix in Valencia

The Red Bull driver, running an upgraded rear-end package on the RB8 that featured re-sculpted sidepods and new rear wing endplates, made the most of the new additions to go quickest with a 1m39.335s, 0.131 seconds ahead of Force India's Nico Hulkenberg and Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi.

Session one pacesetter Pastor Maldonado (Williams) began the bidding six minutes into the session with a 1m41.133s, but that time was never likely to last long and within a minute Kobayashi had moved ahead in the Sauber.

Jenson Button's McLaren then went top with a 1m40.744s before improving that to a 1m40.522s just before the quarter hour mark. Lewis Hamilton quickly moved ahead with a 1m40.397s and that stood for nearly 10 minutes before the rapid-looking Mercedes of Michael Schumacher emerged from the pits and recorded a 1m40.169s.

Having set that time, Schumacher was straight on the radio complaining of 'drive' issues. It was not a big problem though, as he was back on track within 10 minutes.

As the session crept towards the halfway mark, Button slapped on a set of soft Pirellis and became the first man to dip below 1m40s with a 1m39.990s. That though was put into context when Nico Rosberg eclipsed the time on the eighth lap of his own prime medium tyre run.

Ferrari's Fernando Alonso had just moved to the top of the times (1m39.733s), again on softs, when Pedro de la Rosa hit the barriers hard. Having clattered the kerbs at Turn 13, the front-left of the HRT was significantly damaged as it went in front on into the tyres.

There was a brief lull as the circuit was cleared before Schumacher emerged from the pits and set a time of 1m39.601s. It was then, finally, that Vettel produced his 1m39.334s flyer, which settled the matter, as teams switched to long-run modes and gathered degradation data.

Behind Vettel, Hulkenberg and Kobayashi snuck ahead of Schumacher with two very impressive laps that hinted at the potential for another mixed up grid on Saturday.

Bruno Senna was fifth fastest, to further enhance the view that Williams is a contender in Valencia ahead of Hulkenberg's Force India team-mate Paul di Resta.

Romain Grosjean was the fastest Lotus driver in seventh ahead of Mark Webber and Rosberg.

That meant that both McLaren drivers, Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa all loitered outside the top 10 and the top 15 runners were covered by 0.910s.

Pos  Driver                Team                   Time               Laps
 1.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault       1m39.334             33
 2.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes   1m39.465s  + 0.131   32
 3.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari         1m39.595s  + 0.261   20
 4.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes               1m39.601s  + 0.267   27
 5.  Bruno Senna           Williams-Renault       1m39.644s  + 0.310   34
 6.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes   1m39.700s  + 0.366   32
 7.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari                1m39.733s  + 0.399   34
 8.  Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault          1m39.868s  + 0.534   33
 9.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault       1m39.901s  + 0.567   30
10.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes               1m39.926s  + 0.592   32
11.  Kimi Raikkonen        Lotus-Renault          1m39.945s  + 0.611   34
12.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes       1m39.990s  + 0.656   33
13.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Renault       1m40.075s  + 0.741   29
14.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes       1m40.147s  + 0.813   25
15.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari                1m40.244s  + 0.910   35
16.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari         1m40.511s  + 1.177   29
17.  Vitaly Petrov         Caterham-Renault       1m40.963s  + 1.629   20
18.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m41.121s  + 1.787   32
19.  Heikki Kovalainen     Caterham-Renault       1m41.197s  + 1.863   38
20.  Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m41.263s  + 1.929   29
21.  Timo Glock            Marussia-Cosworth      1m42.424s  + 3.090   21
22.  Charles Pic           Marussia-Cosworth      1m42.958s  + 3.624   30
23.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth           1m44.201s  + 4.867   33
24.  Pedro de la Rosa      HRT-Cosworth           1m44.260s  + 4.926   12

All Timing Unofficial