Sebastian Vettel, the closest man to championship leader Fernando Alonso in
the standings, backed up his team-mate’s showing with the third-fastest time.
Nico Hulkenberg raised hopes that Force India can follow up a strong showing
in Singapore as he claimed fourth, but it was an awful session for his
team-mate Paul Di Resta.
The Scot brought out the red flags early in the session, making the same error
Schumacher would later replicate at Spoon Curve, ruling him out of the
remainder of the 90 minutes of running and finishing bottom of the
timesheets.
Alonso, trying to fend off a five-strong chasing pack in the title race, was
fifth-fastest and Ferrari appear to once again be well shy of the pace of
McLaren and Red Bull.
Sixth went to Romain Grosjean’s Lotus while Button dropped back to seventh
after topping the times earlier in the day.
Bruno Senna was eighth, having sat out the first practice session as reserve
driver Valtteri Bottas was given some seat time, with Felipe Massa and
Schumacher rounding out the top 10.
Nico Rosberg was 11th in the other Mercedes after an engine shutdown at the
end of the morning running had forced a change of powerplant.
New McLaren signing Sergio Perez was 12th ahead of Sauber team-mate and home
favourite Kamui Kobayashi, who had been as high as second.
It was also a disappointing session for Kimi Raikkonen. The Finn, third in the
championship, missed the majority of the session after a KERS issue led his
team to inform him his car was ”unsafe”.
After getting back out during the final moments of the session, he set the
14th-fastest time.
The session concluded with Vitaly Petrov having a scary moment in his
Caterham, after the rear wing fell off as he approached the high-speed first
turn, but the Russian was unhurt.
Second Practice times:
1 Mark Webber (Aus) Red Bull-Renault 1min 32.493secs, 2 Lewis Hamilton (Gbr)
McLaren-Mercedes 1:32.707, 3 Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Red Bull-Renault
1:32.836, 4 Nico Hulkenberg (Ger) Force India-Mercedes 1:32.987, 5 Fernando
Alonso (Spa) Ferrari 1:33.093, 6 Romain Grosjean (Fra) Lotus-Renault
1:33.107, 7 Jenson Button (Gbr) McLaren-Mercedes 1:33.349, 8 Bruno Senna
(Spa) Williams-Renault 1:33.499, 9 Felipe Massa (Spa) Ferrari 1:33.614, 10
Michael Schumacher (Ger) Mercedes GP 1:33.750, 11 Nico Rosberg (Ger)
Mercedes GP 1:33.866, 12 Sergio Perez (Mex) Sauber 1:33.903, 13 Kamui
Kobayashi (Jpn) Sauber 1:33.983, 14 Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Lotus-Renault
1:34.291, 15 Pastor Maldonado (Ven) Williams-Renault 1:34.300, 16 Daniel
Ricciardo (Aus) Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:34.863, 17 Jean-Eric Vergne (Fra) Toro
Rosso-Ferrari 1:35.080, 18 Heikki Kovalainen (Fin) Caterham-Renault
1:35.711, 19 Vitaly Petrov (Rus) Caterham-Renault 1:35.870, 20 Timo Glock
(Ger) Marussia-Cosworth 1:36.194, 21 Charles Pic (Fra) Marussia-Cosworth
1:36.636, 22 Pedro de la Rosa (Spa) HRT-Cosworth 1:37.342, 23 Narain
Karthikeyan (Ind) HRT-Cosworth 1:38.466, 24 Paul Di Resta (Gbr) Force
India-Mercedes no time