Vettel was a close second, 0.164secs adrift in his Red Bull, followed by
Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg and then Hamilton, the latter half a second off the
pace of his fellow Briton.
The Lotus duo of Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean finished hot on Hamilton’s
heels, the trio separated by just 0.055secs.
Red Bull’s Mark Webber, who was involved in the only incident of note across
the three hours of practice today when he trundled off at turn four,
spraying gravel across the track on his return, was down in seventh,
0.666secs adrift of Button.
Seven-time champion Michael Schumacher of Mercedes, Sauber’s Kamui Kobayashi
and the Force India of Nico Hulkenberg completed the top 10, the latter just
within a second of Button.
Ferrari duo Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso were down in 11th and 14th
respectively, the latter having topped the timesheet in FP1, albeit
understood to be on a relatively low-fuel run.
Button ultimately improved on that time by over a second, however, seemingly
as Ferrari concentrated on long-run pace in FP2.
For this weekend the Ferraris carry a raft of updates designed to hopefully
propel them firmly into contention for the title.
Sporting a new exhaust concept and rear bodywork, the belief is if it works at
this circuit, it will prove reliable for the rest of the European campaign
at least.
Paul di Resta, who made way for Force India reserve Jules Bianchi in FP1,
finished 1.289secs down in 15th.
After sitting out first practice for reserve Dani Clos, Narain Karthikeyan
suffered a truncated second session, managing just two installation laps and
without setting a time before his HRT ground to a halt.
Second practice times:
1 Jenson Button (Gbr) McLaren-Mercedes 1min 23.399secs
2 Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Red Bull-Renault 1:23.563
3 Nico Rosberg (Ger) Mercedes GP 1:23.771
4 Lewis Hamilton (Gbr) McLaren-Mercedes 1:23.909
5 Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Lotus-Renault 1:23.918
6 Romain Grosjean (Swi) Lotus-Renault 1:23.964
7 Mark Webber (Aus) Red Bull-Renault 1:24.065
8 Michael Schumacher (Ger) Mercedes GP 1:24.080
9 Kamui Kobayashi (Jpn) Sauber 1:24.214
10 Nico Hulkenberg (Ger) Force India-Mercedes 1:24.365
11 Felipe Massa (Bra) Ferrari 1:24.418
12 Sergio Perez (Mex) Sauber 1:24.422
13 Pastor Maldonado (Ven) Williams-Renault 1:24.468
14 Fernando Alonso (Spa) Ferrari 1:24.600
15 Paul Di Resta (Gbr) Force India-Mercedes 1:24.688
16 Jean-Eric Vergne (Fra) Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:24.733
17 Daniel Ricciardo (Aus) Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:24.769
18 Bruno Senna (Bra) Williams-Renault 1:25.047
19 Heikki Kovalainen (Fin) Caterham-Renault 1:26.296
20 Vitaly Petrov (Rus) Caterham-Renault 1:26.740
21 Timo Glock (Ger) Marussia-Cosworth 1:27.314
22 Charles Pic (Fra) Marussia-Cosworth 1:27.664
23 Pedro de la Rosa (Spa) HRT-Cosworth 1:28.235
24 Narain Karthikeyan (Ind) HRT-Cosworth no time