Practice Two - Vettel bests Hamilton by a whisker

Sebastian Vettel just beat Lewis Hamilton to the fastest time in the second practice session at Monza on Friday afternoon, lapping his Red Bull 0.036s ahead of the Briton's McLaren.

Nobody got close to Hamilton’s 1m 23.865s from this morning, but Vettel managed 1m 24.010s to Hamilton’s 1m 24.046s. Then Michael Schumacher sprang a surprise with third quickest time of 1m 24.347s for Mercedes, which at one stage was fastest.

Behind the German veteran the times were much closer at the front than they had been this morning, with Ferrari team mates Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso leading Red Bull’s Mark Webber and McLaren’s Jenson Button. The Brazilian lapped in 1m 24.366s to the Spaniard’s 1m 24.433s, while the Australian managed 1m 24.468s to the Englishman’s 1m 24.508s.

Thereafter the animals largely tended to come in two by two, with Sergio Perez and Kamui Kobayashi eighth and ninth for Sauber on 1m 25.097s and 1m 25.182s, before the latter stopped at the Lesmos with a transmission problem late in the session.

Then came the Renaults with Bruno Senna on 1m 25.325s and Vitaly Petrov on 1m 25.450s, the Force Indias with Adrian Sutil in 1m 25.496s and Paul di Resta on 1m 25.683s. Jaime Alguersuari was Toro Rosso’s leading runner on 1m 25.758s, but Sebastien Buemi spoiled the symmetry as he was 17th on 1m 28.347s after binning his STR6 at Parabolica.

In between the Faenza team’s twosome, Rubens Barrichello edged Williams team mate Pastor Maldonado, 1m 26.202s to 1m 26.353s.

Jarno Trulli took his Lotus T128 back from Karun Chandhok to record 18th fastest time of 1m 28.559s just ahead of team mate Heikki Kovalainen on 1m 28.605s. After his engine-related problems this morning, Timo Glock gave Virgin a boost with 1m 28.804s in his heavily revised MVR-02 which features new sidepods, floor and exhaust.

Tonio Liuzzi took his HRT round for 1m 29.162s, just ahead of Nico Rosberg, who could not persuade his Mercedes below 1m 29.184s as he focussed on race preparation work after a KERS problem early in the session. Behind them, Jerome D’Ambrosio was 23rd in his standard Virgin on 1m 29.622s and Daniel Ricciardo cut down to 1m 29.841s after missing much of the session due to his HRT requiring an alternator change.