» 2013 Malaysian GP: Räikkönen survives FP2 showers to go quickest

Kimi Räikkönen continued his strong form in Malaysia by topping the second practice session that saw mixed conditions.

After finishing second-fastest in the first practice in the morning, the Australian Grand Prix winner clocked a time of 1.36.569 on the medium tyres, which finally got their first running for the weekend. The time was set in the first hour as a brief rain shower caused teams to scurry back to their garages before getting in some useful intermediate running as more rain is predicted over the weekend.

Sebastian Vettel showed Red Bull Racing as one of the teams to beat by finishing in second just behind Räikkönen. Vettel’s time was good enough to edge out both Ferraris, with Felipe Massa impressively pipping his team-mate by three-tenths of a second, and he looks to be in strong form at the start of the season.

Mark Webber was fifth in the sister RB9 ahead of Lotus’ Romain Grosjean and Nico Rosberg for Mercedes. Rosberg’s team-mate Lewis Hamilton again wasn’t able to match his time, but was only one-tenth away from the German.

Paul di Resta was eighth-fastest while his fellow Force India driver Adrian Sutil rounded out the top ten, but only managed to complete ten laps and was forced to sit out most of the session as a precaution with an oil seal failure.

It was yet another mixed session for McLaren, with Sergio Pérez beating Jenson Button for the first time in a practice session with the eleventh-fastest time. Button was one spot back and actually the fastest runner on medium tyres when the track was wet, but his eventual best time of 1.37.865 was over a second off the pace.

Nico Hülkenberg survived a spin as he entered the pits when the track became wet; he finished in thirteenth place, ahead of his team-mate Esteban Gutiérrez who also had an issue with his fire extinguisher going off in his car during the session as well as a broken exhaust. Jean-Eric Vergne was fifteenth-fastest for Toro Rosso as they continue to struggle for pace, Daniel Ricciardo in seventeenth only adds to their woes.

The woes also continue at Williams, with Pastor Maldonado setting the sixteenth-fastest time while Valtteri Bottas in nineteenth was slower than the impressive Marussia rookie Jules Bianchi.

Caterham duo Charles Pic and Giedo van der Garde both suffered off track moments during the rain and ended the session separated by only one hundredth of a second neat the bottom of the timesheets. Max Chilton once again rounded up the field in last place, close to five seconds off the pace.

With drivers getting a taste of a wet Sepang ahead of more predicted wet weather this weekend, it’ll be interesting to see who can come out on top as we head into qualifying tomorrow.

2013 Malaysian Formula 1 Grand Prix – Free Practice 2 Session Times:

	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Laps
1.	Kimi Räikkönen	Lotus F1 Renault E21	1:36.569		28
2.	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing Renault RB9	1:36.588	+ 0.019	27
3.	Felipe Massa	Scuderia Ferrari F138	1:36.661	+ 0.092	33
4.	Fernando Alonso	Scuderia Ferrari F138	1:36.985	+ 0.416	23
5.	Mark Webber	Red Bull Racing Renault RB9	1:37.026	+ 0.457	29
6.	Romain Grosjean	Lotus F1 Renault E21	1:37.206	+ 0.637	26
7.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes AMG Petronas F1W04	1:37.448	+ 0.879	32
8.	Paul di Resta	Force India Mercedes VJM06	1:37.571	+ 1.002	30
9.	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes AMG Petronas F1W04	1:37.574	+ 1.005	32
10.	Adrian Sutil	Force India Mercedes VJM06	1:37.788	+ 1.219	10
11.	Sergio Pérez	McLaren Mercedes MP4-28	1:37.838	+ 1.269	21
12.	Jenson Button	McLaren Mercedes MP4-28	1:37.865	+ 1.296	29
13.	Nico Hülkenberg	Sauber Ferrari C32	1:38.068	+ 1.499	31
14.	Esteban Gutiérrez	Sauber Ferrari C32	1:38.645	+ 2.076	23
15.	Jean-Éric Vergne	Scuderia Toro Rosso Ferrari STR8	1:38.738	+ 2.169	31
16.	Pastor Maldonado	Williams Renault FW35	1:38.801	+ 2.232	27
17.	Daniel Ricciardo	Scuderia Toro Rosso Ferrari STR8	1:38.904	+ 2.335	31
18.	Jules Bianchi	Marussia Cosworth MR02	1:39.508	+ 2.939	30
19.	Valtteri Bottas	Williams Renault FW35	1:39.660	+ 3.091	28
20.	Charles Pic	Caterham Renault CT03	1:40.757	+ 4.188	29
21.	Giedo van der Garde	Caterham Renault CT03	1:40.768	+ 4.199	32
22.	Max Chilton	Marussia Cosworth MR02	1:41.438	+ 4.869	33