Crucially for Vettel, in the fight for the world championship as he aims to
extend his 13-point lead over Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, he finished
0.836secs ahead of the Spaniard, who was down in seventh.
The Ferrari has new parts on it this weekend, and it remains to be seen
whether Alonso and the team can still extract more from them or whether they
will again be found wanting come qualifying.
The one-lap showdown has been Ferrari’s Achilles heel of late, and they cannot
afford to concede too many positions to Vettel and Red Bull.
Certainly Alonso has to avoid a six-place gap between himself and Vettel as
other than Button, Red Bull’s Mark Webber and the Lotus duo of Romain
Grosjean and Kimi Raikkonen were all in between.
Alonso was the last of those within a second of Vettel, with Felipe Massa
eighth on the timesheet, but 1.072secs adrift of the 25-year-old, who is
aiming for his fifth consecutive win on Sunday.
Williams duo Pastor Maldonado and Bruno Senna were within two tenths of a
second of one another in ninth and 11th, sandwiching McLaren-bound Sergio
Perez in his Sauber, with the Mexican 1.355secs down.
There followed a trio of Germans in Mercedes pair Nico Rosberg and Michael
Schumacher, 12th and 14th, who sat either side of Nico Hulkenberg in his
Force India, with all around 1.5secs off the pace.
Paul di Resta, forced to sit out first practice as Jules Bianchi was given
another outing, finished a third of a second behind Hulkenberg in 15th.
Like Di Resta, HRT’s Narain Karthikeyan also missed FP1 in favour of reserve
Ma Qing Hua, and finished last on the timesheet, 5.655secs behind Vettel.
Earlier in the day, 21-year-old Briton Max Chilton was given his first taste
of a F1 weekend as he drove for Marussia, acquitting himself well with 22
laps and finishing a second off team-mate Timo Glock come the conclusion.