After a quiet morning, Red Bull Racing and Sebastian Vettel rose to the top in the afternoon at the Circuit de Catalunya. With the track properly dry and temperatures rising, Vettel wasted no time in exiting the pitlane when the light turned green. He was followed by most of the field, with 19 cars on track within the first five minutes. He started on the experimental hard tyre, others followed with a mix of that and the standard version. Lap times were soon much quicker than those set in the morning, with Mercedes Nico Rosberg leading the way with a 1:23.801 at the 15 minute mark. Team-mate Lewis Hamilton faired less well, spinning his car onto the kerbs at Turn 11.
Medium tyres came out early than usual with Webber taking a second out of Rosbergs time on his first run shortly after the half-hour point. Webber was shortly toppled though, as Vettel beat him by hundredths with 1:22.808 just before the half-way point, and Fernando Alonso slipped his Ferrari in between the Red Bull pair.
With many drivers settling into long runs in the second half of the session, the order at the top stayed largely static to the flag. Kimi Rikknen was fourth for Lotus ahead of Felipe Massa in the second Ferrari. Then came Hamilton and Rosberg. They were followed by Adrian Sutil for Force India eighth, Jean-Eric Vergnes Toro Rosso ninth and Paul di Resta in the second Force India tenth. Di Resta retired his car with 20 minutes of the session remaining, parking by the pitlane exit after a tyre failure damaged his bodywork.
No such troubles for Vettel though, the World Champion ran to the flag. Speaking afterwards he professed himself happy with the afternoon but also suggested the developments to his car this week are not as significant as has been made out. We have some new parts here but the days of big, big upgrades dont really happen now with the regulations how they are, he said. This afternoon was fairly conclusive, but this morning wasnt really much good with the weather.
Spanish FP2
1. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m22.808s 34 laps2. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m22.825s + 0.017s 353. Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 1m22.891s + 0.083s 364. Kimi Raikkonen Lotus-Renault 1m23.030s + 0.222s 325. Felipe Massa Ferrari 1m23.110s + 0.302s 376. Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m23.140s + 0.332s 357. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m23.398s + 0.590s 458. Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1m23.840s + 1.032s 379. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m24.058s + 1.250s 3110. Paul di Resta Force India-Mercedes 1m24.104s + 1.296s 2511. Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m24.175s + 1.367s 3212. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1m24.306s + 1.498s 3513. Sergio Perez McLaren-Mercedes 1m24.854s + 2.046s 3114. Valtteri Bottas Williams-Renault 1m24.888s + 2.080s 3815. Nico Hulkenberg Sauber-Ferrari 1m25.167s + 2.359s 3816. Pastor Maldonado Williams-Renault 1m25.321s + 2.513s 3217. Esteban Gutierrez Sauber-Ferrari 1m25.441s + 2.633s 3718. Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 1m25.851s + 3.043s 3519. Giedo van der Garde Caterham-Renault 1m25.963s + 3.155s 3020. Jules Bianchi Marussia-Cosworth 1m26.078s + 3.270s 3121. Charles Pic Caterham-Renault 1m26.930s + 4.122s 3522. Max Chilton Marussia-Cosworth 1m26.970s + 4.162s 25
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