» Chinese GP: Vettel quickest again in FP2

Having ended the opening practice session of the Chinese Grand Prix comfortably quickest, Sebastian Vettel repeated the dose in Friday’s second free practice session, although this time his main rivals, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button of McLaren, were able to run much closer to his pace.

Vettel’s best effort of 1:37.688 – over a second faster than his best lap in the morning session – was closely matched by Hamilton and Button, while Nico Rosberg showed improved form in his Mercedes GP to lap fractionally slower than Button en route to the fourth-fastest time. Team-mate Michael Schumacher followed suit and finished fifth-quickest.

By contrast, other teams and drivers had troubled outings, with Fernando Alonso the feature, losing mileage with a hydraulics problem during the session.

Confined to their pit garages for the second session was Force India’s Paul di Resta and HRT’s Vitantonio Liuzzi, who were stuck in pit lane with a fuel pressure problem and a rear-end rebuild respectively. Di Resta would not get any track time this session, while Liuzzi managed a single flying lap at the end of the session, which was enough to go quicker than either Virgin Racing car managed in the entire session.

In fact, it seems that Virgin Racing’s all-CFD car could come unglued at Shanghai, with its MVR-02s looking slower than HRT’s little-run F111 challenger in the two sessions this weekend. The red and black car’s lack of pace has prompted a very worried Timo Glock to suggest that they will struggle to lap within 107% of the fastest Q1 session time in tomorrow’s qualifying.

To the on-track action, however, and the hazy conditions witnessed in the first practice session improved somewhat for the afternoon’s running, and ambient temperatures reached peaks of 27°C (81°F), while the track surface hit 33°C (91°F).

The second 90-minute session of the day saw a few off-track moments, with Jaime Alguersuari opening the tally with a spin at Turn 8.

Meanwhile, Nick Heidfeld was finding the Armco barriers holding a positively magnetic attraction today, and he buried the nose of his Renault in the wall once again, this time at Turn 2. After repairs for another new nose and more suspension rebuilds, the German rejoined the action and finished the session eighth-fastest.

Heidfeld’s team-mate Vitaly Petrov had a new-miss with Felipe Massa when he came across the Brazilian dawdling on the racing line at the Turn 14 hairpin.

Several drivers – including Mark Webber (who was some way off Vettel’s pace in this session), Kamui Kobayashi and Jérôme d’Ambrosio all had trips over the exit kerbs at the final corner, and HRT’s Narain Karthikeyan had a spin a Turn 1 with two minutes of the session remaining.

[Images via Formula1.com, GP Update, LAT]

2011 Chinese Grand Prix – Free Practice 2 Session Times:

	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
1.	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Renault RB7	1:37.688	34
2.	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren Mercedes MP4-26	+ 0.166	22
3.	Jenson Button	McLaren Mercedes MP4-26	+ 0.247	31
4.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes GP W02	+ 0.255	34
5.	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes GP W02	+ 0.417	29
6.	Felipe Massa	Ferrari F150° Italia	+ 0.819	36
7.	Adrian Sutil	Force India Mercedes VJM04	+ 1.047	35
8.	Nick Heidfeld	Renault R31	+ 1.117	26
9.	Vitaly Petrov	Renault R31	+ 1.171	31
10.	Mark Webber	Red Bull Renault RB7	+ 1.639	33
11.	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber Ferrari C30	+ 1.850	33
12.	Pastor Maldonado	Williams Cosworth FW33	+ 1.979	37
13.	Sébastien Buemi	Toro Rosso Ferrari STR6	+ 2.083	18
14.	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari F150° Italia	+ 2.091	17
15.	Jaime Alguersuari	Toro Rosso Ferrari STR6	+ 2.140	25
16.	Rubens Barrichello	Williams Cosworth FW33	+ 2.237	32
17.	Sergio Pérez	Sauber Ferrari C30	+ 2.265	30
18.	Heikki Kovalainen	Lotus Renault T128	+ 2.788	30
19.	Jarno Trulli	Lotus Renault T128	+ 3.794	32
20.	Narain Karthikeyan	HRT F1 Cosworth F111	+ 5.214	25
21.	Vitantonio Liuzzi	HRT F1 Cosworth F111	+ 6.162	3
22.	Jérôme d’Ambrosio	Virgin Racing Cosworth MVR-02	+ 6.320	35
23.	Timo Glock	Virgin Racing Cosworth MVR-02	+ 7.059	12
24.	Paul di Resta	Force India Mercedes VJM04	no time	0