» 2012 Brazilian GP: Hamilton fastest again in FP2

Lewis Hamilton has completed a Friday practice lockout after finishing on top of both practice sessions as the last Grand Prix weekend got underway at Interlagos.

In what is widely predicted to be the only totally dry-weather day of the weekend, four of the opening session’s top-five runners matched their efforts from this morning’s practice session, with Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber completing the top-three, while Fernando Alonso was fifth-fastest once again.

It was a busy session for all concerned as the grid sought to clock up as many laps as possible, but the data gathered today could be completely meaningless if the heavens – as expected – open for Saurday’s qualifying and Sunday’s race action.

Having used the opening practice session to evaluate a prototype tyre compound that Pirelli will seek to run in 2013, this session was spent concentrating on the weekend’s normal tyre allocation: the Hard and Medium dry-weather tyres.

Hamilton, Vettel and Webber all clocked their fastest lap times on the softer tyre, while Alonso spent the afternoon’s session concentrating on longer hard tyre runs. Ferrari opted to split its programme and give team-mate Felipe Massa the use of the softer tyres, and the Brazilian finished the session fourth-fastest on his home circuit.

2012 Brazilian Formula 1 Grand Prix – Free Practice 2 Session Times:

	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Laps
1.	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren Mercedes MP4-27	1:14.026		35
2.	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing Renault RB8	1:14.300	+ 0.274	40
3.	Mark Webber	Red Bull Racing Renault RB8	1:14.523	+ 0.497	37
4.	Felipe Massa	Scuderia Ferrari F2012	1:14.553	+ 0.527	37
5.	Fernando Alonso	Scuderia Ferrari F2012	1:14.592	+ 0.566	37
6.	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes AMG F1 W03	1:14.654	+ 0.628	36
7.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes AMG F1 W03	1:14.669	+ 0.643	40
8.	Jenson Button	McLaren Mercedes MP4-27	1:14.863	+ 0.837	40
9.	Romain Grosjean	Lotus F1 Renault E20	1:14.994	+ 0.968	37
10.	Paul di Resta	Force India Mercedes VJM05	1:15.129	+ 1.103	39
11.	Nico Hülkenberg	Force India Mercedes VJM05	1:15.131	+ 1.105	40
12.	Kimi Räikkönen	Lotus F1 Renault E20	1:15.371	+ 1.345	39
13.	Bruno Senna	Williams Renault FW34	1:15.432	+ 1.406	45
14.	Sergio Pérez	Sauber Ferrari C31	1:15.542	+ 1.516	35
15.	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber Ferrari C31	1:15.839	+ 1.813	43
16.	Daniel Ricciardo	Scuderia Toro Rosso Ferrari STR7	1:15.902	+ 1.876	39
17.	Pastor Maldonado	Williams Renault FW34	1:15.953	+ 1.927	47
18.	Jean-Éric Vergne	Scuderia Toro Rosso Ferrari STR7	1:16.048	+ 2.022	40
19.	Vitaly Petrov	Caterham Renault CT01	1:16.126	+ 2.100	39
20.	Heikki Kovalainen	Caterham Renault CT01	1:16.655	+ 2.629	42
21.	Pedro de la Rosa	HRTF1 Cosworth F112	1:17.244	+ 3.218	15
22.	Timo Glock	Marussia Racing Cosworth MR01	1:17.675	+ 3.649	42
23.	Charles Pic	Marussia Racing Cosworth MR01	1:18.127	+ 4.101	31
24.	Narain Karthikeyan	HRTF1 Cosworth F112	1:18.139	+ 4.113	15