Unlike in the opening session, however, Vettel managed to avoid the error that
blighted his session when the 24 year-old went off course.
Vettel’s mistake was followed up in the second session by other incidents, the
most notable of which saw Rubens Barrichello crumple his Williams car into a
tyre barrier.
The veteran Brazilian lost his line going into Degner One, running wide onto
the grass on the approach.
With no grip, Barrichello was then spun round, his car hurtling backwards
across the gravel before slamming into the tyres.
In what turned out to be a wretched session for Williams, Pastor Maldonado
suffered a mechanical that forced him to pull off the track at Degner One 10
minutes after Barrichello’s accident.
Half an hour before that Bruno Senna was too late on his brakes into turn one,
appropriately named First Curve, the Brazilian sliding his way across the
gravel and stopping just short of a barrier.
Fortunately for Senna he managed to keep the engine in his Renault running,
which enabled him to get a push from the marshals and see out the session,
although only just.
Moments before Barrichello’s accident, Senna was fortunate to avoid a similar
fate at Degner Two, a sharp right-hander where he ran wide, albeit managing
to get his car back on track.
The trio all finished in the lower half of a timesheet in which Red Bull’s
Mark Webber, searching for his first victory after a 21-race drought, was
fourth quickest, a quarter of a second behind Button.
Ferrari’s Felipe Massa was just over half a second down, followed by Mercedes
duo Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg, 0.809secs and 1.081secs adrift
respectively.
Whether Hamilton has anything in reserve remains to be seen, but it was a
surprise to see him 1.344secs down on Button, with Renault’s Vitaly Petrov
and Sebastien Buemi in his Toro Rosso rounding out the top 10.
Force India’s Paul di Resta was 15th, 2.7secs behind Button and 0.8secs off of
team-mate Adrian Sutil who had sat out the first session in favour of
reserve Nico Hulkenberg.
Hispania’s Vitantonio Liuzzi propped up the standings, 10.5secs down, albeit
after he too suffered a mechanical issue early in the session in which he
completed just four laps.