Hamilton fastest again in second practice

The McLaren driver was fastest in the day's earlier session and repeated the feat in the afternoon with a series of short runs.

Hamilton was the first frontrunner up to speed and matched his best time from first practice in the first 15 minutes. He worked his way down through the 1m34s and posted his best lap half way through.

The session was half an hour old before the first quick time was set on the option tyre, and from then on several drivers complained about the balance of the car on the softer compound so early in the weekend's running.

Just seconds after setting the fastest time of the session, Hamilton was on the radio to McLaren to say: "The options feel very poor, very aggressive, causing wheelspin."

It was much later in the session before team-mate Jenson Button took on the option tyre, but he wasn't happy with them either, reporting both understeer and rear-end instability.

Sebastian Vettel set the second quickest time, taking his first run on the option tyre with around half an hour to go. He initially suspected that he had a power steering problem, but set a 1m34.4s lap a couple of minutes later.

Red Bull's reliability woes continued though, with Mark Webber forced to park his car in the gravel at Turn 9 after less than half an hour. The team suspects an engine failure.

Mercedes finished the session with its cars third and fifth, sandwiching Button's McLaren. Nico Rosberg was just 0.002s quicker than Button, while Schumacher topped the timesheet for 30 seconds before Hamilton set his best lap, and was eventually pushed down to fifth.

Ferrari opted to spend the majority of the session running with heavy fuel and for most of the 90 minutes its cars were four seconds off the pace in 17th and 19th places.

Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa strapped on the softer rubber for runs at the end. Alonso went seventh, behind Robert Kubica's Renault, while Massa's improvement was more marginal, up to 15th.

There were no major incidents in the session, but plenty of cars flying off the road as the drivers struggled to harness the option tyre.

Jaime Alguersuari and Sebastien Buemi combined to go off three times in as many minutes as the back ends of their Toro Rossos got away from them.

Adrian Sutil and Bruno Senna were caught out, running wide at the long right hander at Turn 11. Kamui Kobayashi also had a half spin at the Turn 9 hairpin in the first five minutes.

Pos  Driver         Team                    Time                Laps
 1.  Hamilton       McLaren-Mercedes        1:34.175		27 
 2.  Vettel         Red Bull-Renault        1:34.441  + 0.266   28
 3.  Rosberg        Mercedes                1:34.443  + 0.268   30
 4.  Button         McLaren-Mercedes        1:34.538  + 0.363   24
 5.  Schumacher     Mercedes                1:34.674  + 0.499   30
 6.  Kubica         Renault                 1:35.148  + 0.973   34
 7.  Alonso         Ferrari                 1:35.581  + 1.406   34
 8.  Buemi          Toro Rosso-Ferrari      1:35.660  + 1.485   39
 9.  Petrov         Renault                 1:35.872  + 1.697   20
10.  Sutil          Force India-Mercedes    1:35.957  + 1.782   32 
11.  Kobayashi      Sauber-Ferrari          1:36.018  + 1.843   38
12.  Liuzzi         Force India-Mercedes    1:36.221  + 2.046   34
13.  de la Rosa     Sauber-Ferrari          1:36.325  + 2.150   33
14.  Alguersuari    Toro Rosso-Ferrari      1:36.325  + 2.150   39
15.  Massa          Ferrari                 1:36.602  + 2.427   30
16.  Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth       1:36.813  + 2.638   26
17.  Hulkenberg     Williams-Cosworth       1:37.415  + 3.240   19
18.  Trulli         Lotus-Cosworth          1:38.454  + 4.279   34
19.  Kovalainen     Lotus-Cosworth          1:38.530  + 4.355   32 
20.  Webber         Red Bull-Renault        1:38.786  + 4.558   13
21.  Glock          Virgin-Cosworth         1:39.061  + 4.886   23
22.  di Grassi      Virgin-Cosworth         1:39.158  + 4.983   29
23.  Chandhok       HRT-Cosworth            1:41.084  + 6.909   27
24.  Senna          HRT-Cosworth            1:41.481  + 7.306   32

All Timing Unofficial