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Red Bull duo stay on top at Suzuka

Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber maintained Red Bull's one-two formation in the second Friday practice session at Suzuka

Just they had in the morning, the Red Bull duo wasted no time in moving to the head of the times, with Vettel hitting the front after 20 minutes and remaining there for most of the rest of the session.

The only man able to head last year's Suzuka winner was his team-mate Webber, who took on soft tyres slightly earlier and therefore nipped ahead of Vettel for a couple of minutes at the one-hour mark.

But once on the same rubber, Vettel responded to Webber's 1m31.860s with a 1m31.465s to ensure a clean sweep of Friday top spots.

Lewis Hamilton's crash in the first session heavily impinged on his running this afternoon, with the McLaren not ready to take to the track until there were just eight minutes left. The Briton crammed in seven laps but was only 13th, two seconds slower than Vettel.

After its quiet morning, Ferrari showed its hand in the second session. Fernando Alonso led the way before the Red Bulls got up to speed, and ended up fourth, 0.8 seconds off the pace, and just ahead of his team-mate Felipe Massa and McLaren's other title contender Jenson Button.

Renault goes into the weekend in very promising shape. Despite a high-speed spin through the gravel in the S curves - an incident replicated by Virgin's Lucas di Grassi and Toro Rosso's Sebastien Buemi - Robert Kubica took third place again. His Suzuka rookie team-mate Vitaly Petrov also held a top three position for a while and ended up seventh.

Michael Schumacher remained quick and took eighth, three places ahead of his Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg. The seven-time champion ran very wide at Degner late on but got out of the gravel without repeating Hamilton's meeting with the barriers.

Adrian Sutil (Force India) and Nico Hulkenberg (Williams) completed the top 10, with the latter's team-mate Rubens Barrichello losing mileage to an engine issue.


Pos  Driver         Team                    Time              Laps
 1.  Vettel         Red Bull-Renault        1:31.465            31
 2.  Webber         Red Bull-Renault        1:31.860  + 0.395   29
 3.  Kubica         Renault                 1:32.200  + 0.735   32
 4.  Alonso         Ferrari                 1:32.362  + 0.897   34
 5.  Massa          Ferrari                 1:32.519  + 1.054   35
 6.  Button         McLaren-Mercedes        1:32.533  + 1.068   28
 7.  Petrov         Renault                 1:32.703  + 1.238   32
 8.  Schumacher     Mercedes                1:32.831  + 1.366   27
 9.  Sutil          Force India-Mercedes    1:32.842  + 1.377   26
10.  Hulkenberg     Williams-Cosworth       1:32.851  + 1.386   26
11.  Rosberg        Mercedes                1:32.880  + 1.415   26
12.  Kobayashi      Sauber-Ferrari          1:33.471  + 2.006   31
13.  Hamilton       McLaren-Mercedes        1:33.481  + 2.016   8
14.  Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth       1:33.564  + 2.099   16
15.  Heidfeld       Sauber-Ferrari          1:33.697  + 2.232   33
16.  Buemi          Toro Rosso-Ferrari      1:34.005  + 2.540   32
17.  Alguersuari    Toro Rosso-Ferrari      1:34.055  + 2.590   37
18.  Liuzzi         Force India-Mercedes    1:34.310  + 2.845   33
19.  Kovalainen     Lotus-Cosworth          1:36.095  + 4.630   37
20.  Trulli         Lotus-Cosworth          1:36.333  + 4.868   33
21.  di Grassi      Virgin-Cosworth         1:36.630  + 5.165   28
22.  Glock          Virgin-Cosworth         1:36.834  + 5.369   28
23.  Senna          HRT-Cosworth            1:37.352  + 5.887   33
24.  Yamamoto       HRT-Cosworth            1:37.831  + 6.366   34

All Timing Unofficial

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