» Singapore GP 2nd Practice: Vettel maintains RBR dominance at Marina Bay

Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber have cast an ominous shadow over the reast of the 24-car grid, utterly crushing them with a dominating 1-2 in the second practice session for the Singapore Grand Prix.

The duo evidently might have had some Red Bull with their cereal – or in the fuel tanks of their Renault-powered cars, with Vettel finishing a second quicker than third-fastest Jenson Button with a commanding series of hot laps on the super-soft Bridgestone tyres in the latter half of the 90-minute session.

In fact, Vettel headed the timesheets as early as 25 minutes into the session, briefly being deposed by Button before resuming his authority with a succession of quick laps that would have other drivers reeling.

Vettel’s margin over the rest of the field was over a second, and the gap was only brought down by the sister Red Bull of Mark Webber, who eventually managed to close to within seven-tenths of the German – but by today’s standards, that’s still an eternity.

It seemed that Fernando Alonso – fourth-quickest at the end of the day – might be the only driver who could have threatened Vettel’s reign at the top of the timesheets. The double World Champion had a go at a hot-lap with twenty minutes running to go, posting a faster first split and matching Vettel in the second sector, only to have a wild moment at Turn 17 which led to him disappearing up an escape road at the next corner. He attempted to reverse back onto the field, only to stall his Ferrari and have to abandon any further running.

The only other driver to suffer a major gaffe was Adrian Sutil, who hopped the ‘Singapore Sling’ chicane kerbing a little too violently, taking to the air and landing heavily. which was enough to shatter his left-front suspension. What would later raise the ire of the stewards was his attempt to limp his stricken car back to the pits, an act that earned him a $10,000 fine for his troubles.

At the top of the order, Lewis Hamilton rounded out the day with the fifth-quickest time, half a second up on Rubens Barrichello in the Williams, who was himself marginally quicker than his compatriot Felipe Massa.

Mercedes GP ended a productive opening day in Singapore with both drivers in the top-ten: Nico Rosberg finishing eighth-quickest and Michael Schumacher in tenth, with the pair sandwiching Robert Kubica in the Renault.

Further behind, Kamui Kobayashi marginally outpaced his new Sauber team-mate Nick Heidfeld, with the pair finishing up twelfth and thirteenth-quickest.

At the bottom of the order, HRT finished slowest of all and over a second clear of the next-slowest runners, but Christian Klien might find himself well-pleased to get within a second of team-mate Bruno Senna on his return to the F1 grid.

2010 Singapore GP Practice 2 Session Times:

	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
1.	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Renault	1:46.660	29
2.	Mark Webber	Red Bull Renault	+ 0.627	27
3.	Jenson Button	McLaren Mercedes	+ 1.030	28
4.	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	+ 1.058	20
5.	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren Mercedes	+ 1.158	28
6.	Rubens Barrichello	Williams Cosworth	+ 1.642	31
7.	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	+ 1.681	28
8.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes GP	+ 2.019	26
9.	Robert Kubica	Renault	+ 2.195	15
10.	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes GP	+ 2.229	31
11.	Nico Hülkenberg	Williams Cosworth	+ 2.493	32
12.	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber Ferrari	+ 2.778	30
13.	Nick Heidfeld	Sauber Ferrari	+ 2.898	26
14.	Vitaly Petrov	Renault	+ 2.948	30
15.	Vitantonio Liuzzi	Force India Mercedes	+ 3.236	28
16.	Adrian Sutil	Force India Mercedes	+ 3.324	11
17.	Jaime Alguersuari	Toro Rosso Ferrari	+ 3.531	31
18.	Sébastien Buemi	Toro Rosso Ferrari	+ 4.236	35
19.	Heikki Kovalainen	Lotus Cosworth	+ 5.218	30
20.	Timo Glock	Virgin Racing Cosworth	+ 5.490	22
21.	Lucas di Grassi	Virgin Racing Cosworth	+ 6.771	25
22.	Jarno Trulli	Lotus Cosworth	+ 6.866	27
23.	Bruno Senna	HRT Cosworth	+ 8.065	27
24.	Christian Klien	HRT Cosworth	+ 8.882	25