» Korean GP: Hamilton leads McLaren 1-2 in wet second practice

McLaren has enjoyed a clean sweep in second practice for the Korean Grand Prix, with Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button comfortably out-pacing their nearest rivals by almost two seconds.

The afternoon’s session gave the drivers and teams no let-up in the wet conditions, but Hamilton and Webber showed great control on the slippery surface to claim a team 1-2.

Despite the weather conditions being little different to what had been experienced in the morning, it was a positively busy session, with cars pouring onto the tarmac as soon as the pit lane opened for business.

After the Red Bull pairing of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber had posted some early lap times to move to the top of the timing screens, the McLaren set to work and quickly lowered the benchmark time.

Half an hour into the session, and Hamilton’s time of 1:50.828 would remain unchallenged for the remained of the day’s running. Button mounted a late charge, narrowly missing out on claiming top honours by just 0.1 seconds.

Later on, Fernando Alonso would move his Ferrari into third place (almost two seconds adrift of Hamilton’s outright pace), only to be beaten by Vettel, who only managed a fractionally quicker time, two spots ahead of team-mate Mark Webber.

Despite having surrendered his seat to the team’s new Friday rookie, Jaime Alguersuari took his Toro Rosso sixth-fastest, only to find himself involved in an unusual collision with Nico Rosberg, being harpooned by the Mercedes driver who ran wide exiting Turn 1 as Alguersuari was emerging from the pits.

Rosberg was later issued with a €10,000 fine (€5,000 of which was suspended) by the FIA Stewards, not for causing the incident, but for dawdling en route to their offices when summoned to see them at the end of the session.

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2011 Korean Grand Prix – Free Practice 2 Session Times:

	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
1.	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren Mercedes MP4-26	1:50.828	26
2.	Jenson Button	McLaren Mercedes MP4-26	+ 0.104	19
3.	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Renault RB7	+ 1.818	30
4.	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari F150° Italia	+ 1.946	25
5.	Mark Webber	Red Bull Renault RB7	+ 2.221	27
6.	Jaime Alguersuari	Toro Rosso Ferrari STR6	+ 2.574	25
7.	Felipe Massa	Ferrari F150° Italia	+ 2.879	24
8.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes GP W02	+ 3.086	18
9.	Sébastien Buemi	Toro Rosso Ferrari STR6	+ 3.120	27
10.	Paul di Resta	Force India Mercedes VJM04	+ 3.129	32
11.	Vitaly Petrov	Renault R31	+ 3.372	26
12.	Adrian Sutil	Force India Mercedes VJM04	+ 3.564	26
13.	Rubens Barrichello	Williams Cosworth FW33	+ 4.003	30
14.	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes GP W02	+ 4.137	21
15.	Bruno Senna	Renault R31	+ 4.359	28
16.	Sergio Pérez	Sauber Ferrari C30	+ 4.375	24
17.	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber Ferrari C30	+ 4.716	23
18.	Pastor Maldonado	Williams Cosworth FW33	+ 5.239	22
19.	Heikki Kovalainen	Lotus Renault T128	+ 5.841	20
20.	Jarno Trulli	Lotus Renault T128	+ 6.345	19
21.	Timo Glock	Virgin Racing Cosworth MVR-02	+ 7.441	25
22.	Jérôme d’Ambrosio	Virgin Racing Cosworth MVR-02	+ 8.630	26
23.	Daniel Ricciardo	HRT F1 Cosworth F111	+ 9.130	19
24.	Vitantonio Liuzzi	HRT F1 Cosworth F111	+ 9.337	20