Button is one of five different drivers to have won a race this year, with
history beckoning on Sunday as a season has never started with six different
winners of the first six races.
In truth, no team will have gathered too much useful data today to prepare
them for the race, despite spending three hours out on track.
The rain played its part, but given there is no running on Friday in Monaco –
a long-held tradition – the nature of the roads used for the race could
alter considerably by qualifying on Saturday.
As in the first session, Lotus’ Romain Grosjean was forced to settle for
second best, initially to Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, and then Button, with
the Frenchman 0.392secs adrift.
The Ferraris of Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso finished third and fourth,
the Brazilian for once this season ahead of his team-mate on the timesheet
and under pressure this weekend to improve on his poor performances to date.
Race winner in Spain last time out, Williams’ Pastor Maldonado, was fifth
quickest a second down, followed by Nico Rosberg in his Mercedes.
Red Bull duo Mark Webber and reigning champion Sebastian Vettel were in
seventh and 10th, the latter 1.5secs down, with Sauber’s Kamui Kobayashi and
Michael Schumacher in his Mercedes sandwiched between the pair.
Lewis Hamilton trailed in 11th, 1.6secs off his team-mate, with Force India’s
Paul di Resta narrowly behind his fellow Briton in 12th.
Heikki Kovalainen had earlier brought a premature halt to first practice when
the Renault engine in his Caterham blew nine minutes from the end of the
session.
As the Finn was blasting through the tunnel at the time, white clouds of smoke
billowed into the air, making visibility almost zero, forcing the stewards
to red flag and eventually bring an early end to proceedings.
Back on track in FP2, Kovalainen finished down in 21st, 4.2secs behind Button.
Add Second Practice: 1 Jenson Button (Gbr) McLaren-Mercedes 1min 15.746secs, 2
Romain Grosjean (Swi) Lotus-Renault 1:16.138, 3 Felipe Massa (Bra) Ferrari
1:16.602, 4 Fernando Alonso (Spa) Ferrari 1:16.661, 5 Pastor Maldonado (Ven)
Williams-Renault 1:16.820, 6 Nico Rosberg (Ger) Mercedes GP 1:17.021, 7 Mark
Webber (Aus) Red Bull-Renault 1:17.148, 8 Kamui Kobayashi (Jpn) Sauber
1:17.153, 9 Michael Schumacher (Ger) Mercedes GP 1:17.293, 10 Sebastian
Vettel (Ger) Red Bull-Renault 1:17.303, 11 Lewis Hamilton (Gbr)
McLaren-Mercedes 1:17.375, 12 Paul Di Resta (Gbr) Force India-Mercedes
1:17.395, 13 Bruno Senna (Bra) Williams-Renault 1:17.655, 14 Nico Hulkenberg
(Ger) Force India-Mercedes 1:17.800, 15 Sergio Perez (Mex) Sauber 1:18.251,
16 Vitaly Petrov (Rus) Caterham-Renault 1:18.440, 17 Jean-Eric Vergne (Fra)
Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:18.522, 18 Daniel Ricciardo (Aus) Toro Rosso-Ferrari
1:18.808, 19 Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Lotus-Renault 1:19.267, 20 Timo Glock
(Ger) Marussia-Cosworth 1:19.309, 21 Heikki Kovalainen (Fin)
Caterham-Renault 1:20.029, 22 Charles Pic (Fra) Marussia-Cosworth 1:20.240,
23 Pedro de la Rosa (Spa) HRT-Cosworth 1:20.631, 24 Narain Karthikeyan (Ind)
HRT-Cosworth 1:20.886