Indian GP 2012

OCTOBER 26, 2012

Practice 2 Report - Vettel quickest again in India

Sebastian Vettel
© The Cahier Archive

Sebastian Vettel (1:26.221) and Red Bull Racing team mate Mark Webber (1:26.339) set the headline pace in the second session of free practice for the Indian GP but the long run pace of the leading teams looks evenly matched.

The recent performance gain in one lap pace witnessed from Singapore onwards looks to be in evidence again, which is crucial to the team's ability to dictate the race and run to its optimum strategy.

Fernando Alonso (1:26.820) set the third quickest time and had comparable race pace, so if he is able to repeat that during tomorrow's qualifying hour, could be in a position to challenge on Sunday, even if Ferrari's F2012 looked to be a bigger handful than the Red Bull.

Nico Rosberg (1:27.022) set fourth fastest lap, a hundredth of a second up on Kimi Raikkonen's Lotus (1:27.030), which also looked to have strong long run pace but which needs to be able to qualify on the front couple of roads in order to take advantage of it.

Lewis Hamilton (1:27.131) and Jenson Button (1:27.182) were evenly matched sixth and seventh quickest but the indications are that McLaren may not have the one-lap speed necessary to challenge Red Bull for pole.

Nico Hulkenberg (1:27.233) again looks well placed to maintain Force India's strong recent run of form, with Romain Grosjean's Lotus (1:27.397) and Bruno Senna (1:27.738) completing the top 10.