The Briton knows, however, he will need to pull out all the stops tomorrow as
he faces a gearbox change, and with it the penalty of a drop of five places
on the grid.
Reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel was at least in close attendance to
the frontrunning duo, finishing 0.187secs behind Schumacher and just
0.015secs adrift of Hamilton.
There was then a gap to Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber who was just under
half-a-second down, with Nico Rosberg in his Mercedes 0.644secs off the pace
of his team-mate.
Jenson Button seemingly struggled to get any heat into his front tyres in
particular and had to settle for sixth quickest, nearly three quarters of a
second behind Schumacher.
Sauber’s Kamui Kobayashi was seventh, followed by a creditable effort from
Force India’s Paul di Resta who was forced to make way for reserve driver
Jules Bianchi in the first session.
The Scot, however, returned strongly in session two to wind up a second down
in eighth, yet 0.225secs ahead of team-mate Nico Hulkenberg who had enjoyed
the benefit of running in FP1.
Championship leader Fernando Alonso completed the top 10, but in a Ferrari
that clearly seems to be lacking in pace again compared to their rivals,
finishing a second up on team-mate Felipe Massa who could only manage 17th.
After finishing bottom of the timesheet in first practice due to a rear-wing
issue with his Lotus, problems continued to plague Kimi Raikkonen in FP2,
with the Finn 13th and 1.863secs down.
There was only one major incident, that involving Marussia’s Timo Glock who
inexplicably lost his front wing at one stage, forcing him into the gravel
and resulting in a damaged hand.
Bringing up the rear was HRT’s Narain Karthikeyan, the Indian finishing over
five seconds adrift.
Second practice times:
1 Michael Schumacher (Ger) Mercedes 1min 35.973secs
2 Lewis Hamilton (Gbr) Mclaren-Mercedes 1:36.145
3 Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Red Bull-Renault 1:36.160
4 Mark Webber (Aus) Red Bull-Renault 1:36.433
5 Nico Rosberg (Ger) Mercedes 1:36.617
6 Jenson Button (Gbr) Mclaren-Mercedes 1:36.711
7 Kamui Kobayashi (Jpn) Sauber-Ferrari 1:36.956
8 Paul Di Resta (Gbr) Force India 1:36.966
9 Nico Hulkenberg (Ger) Force India-Mercedes 1:37.191
10 Fernando Alonso (Spa) Ferrari 1:37.316
11 Sergio Perez (Mex) Sauber-Ferrari 1:37.417
12 Daniel Ricciardo (Aus) Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:37.616
13 Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Lotus-Renault 1:37.836
14 Jean-Eric Vergne (Fra) Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:37.930
15 Romain Grosjean (Fra) Lotus-Renault 1:37.972
16 Pastor Maldonado (Ven) Williams-Renault 1:38.176
17 Felipe Massa (Bra) Ferrari 1:38.293
18 Bruno Senna (Bra) Williams-Renault 1:38.783
19 Heikki Kovalainen (Fin) Caterham-Renault 1:38.990
20 Vitaly Petrov (Rus) Caterham-Renault 1:39.346
21 Timo Glock (Ger) Marussia-Cosworth 1:39.651
22 Pedro De La Rosa (Spa) Hrt-Cosworth 1:40.343
23 Charles Pic (Fra) Marussia-Cosworth 1:40.753
24 Narain Karthikeyan (Ind) Hrt-Cosworth 1:41.125