Welcome to our commentary for the second free practice session at Monaco. Sebastian Vettel was the fastest man in the morning, with Fernando Alonso second and Nico Rosberg third. But don't read too much into that order as we've yet to see the soft tyres, the track at its best or last year's winner Mark Webber.

Webber had a gearbox problem which meant he completed three slow installation laps and did not set a time. Michael Schumacher and Tonio Liuzzi both ended their sessions in the barriers, Schumacher at Sainte Devote and Liuzzi under braking for the Nouvelle Chicane.

This is a circuit steeped in history and the general layout has changed little since the first race in 1929. Here's a picture of Juan Manuel Fangio sliding his car through Tabac in 1957, the year he won his second race at the circuit. Can anybody name the famous car in the photo?

© Getty Images

Sadly we won't see any of that this weekend, unless it comes ahead of a big accident.

Back in 2011, we're just five minutes from the start and the engines are being fired up in the garages.

Vettel is in no rush to get out on track. He's sat at the back of the garage as the green light comes on.

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Timo Glock is wasting no time this afternoon. He's already on a flying lap in the Virgin. He sets a 1:23.036.

Any guesses as to who will be the first to clip a barrier this session? Liuzzi and Schumacher both made mistakes in FP2, proving even the most experienced drivers make mistakes in Monaco.

Christian Horner confirms to the BBC that Red Bull has changed the gearbox for this session on Webber's car and is expecting a straight forward session.

Pastor Maldonado locks his front right tyre into turn one and had to be pushed out of the run off area. He didn't actually clip a barrier so your guesses on who will be first do that are still welcome.

Massa is the fastest man with a 1:17.483. The fastest in the morning was a 1:16.619.

Another car has gone off at turn one and this one has hit the barrier... we're still waiting to see who it is.

It was Jaime Alguersuari who hit the barrier at Sainte Devote. Damage looks as though it will be limited to the front wing as it wasn't a huge impact.

Alonso catches a huge slide out of the swimming pool and very nearly went in to the back of team-mate Massa as he came round La Rascasse to find the other Ferrari queuing to start a fast lap.

Rosberg is now fastest 1:16.917.

Sutil is complaining about traffic but it's par for the course around here, especially in practice.

Button has popped up to second fastest with a 1:17.091 and is now going even quicker.

Alonso clocks a new fastest time of the weekend with a 1:16.408.

Webber has completed 10 laps already. His fastest is a 1:18.418.

Vettel has set a new personal best for this session with a 1:19.046. I wouldn't be surprised if he is running with a heavier fuel load at the moment.

The top six are separated by a second, with Sutil nearly another second adrift in seventh.

Ferrari says: "As usual here, traffic is the key factor: Fernando did only one clean lap, Felipe two"

Maldonado is out on track on the super-soft tyres, the first man to do so.

Schumacher is getting ready for his session according to Mercedes: "Michael is in the car and getting ready to head out to start his P2..."

We can see from the TV feed that Vettel is using KERS although he has only ised half as he crosses the line. Red Bull has had a few problems with that system this year and there was talk they might leave it off the car - not the case at the moment.

Schumacher didn't lack any commitment through turn one on his last lap. He's clearly not fazed by his FP1 accident.

Alonso got a lot of overtsteer into Loews as the front tyres struggled to bite. Ferrari adds: "Fernando is out, same set of prime tyres"

Massa also got a huge amount of understeer in Loews and came close to the barrier. He did well to save that.

McLaren is keeping a close eye on the relaid section of tarmac at turn one where there was a truck fire on Wednesday: "The drivers haven't reported any issues yet, but we'll be watching closely as the Tarmac was relaid following a fire just a few days ago."

Still no sign of Liuzzi so it could be that the repair job on his HRT is taking a little longer than expected.

30 minutes into this session and a Ferrari leads the way. 1982 world champion Keke Rosberg is watching from the sidelines.

Di Resta has stopped at the Nouvelle Chicane. His brakes are smoking but there is no sign of serious damage on his car. The marshals are pushing him down one of the escape roads in the direction of the pits, it will be interesting to see if he can get back.

Ferrari tweets: "Fernando is back in the garage. He did not improve his best lap time but set anyway the 2nd best in 1.16.577"

We've just seen a replay of di Resta running wide. He went straight on at the Nouvelle Chicane but didn't actually have an accident.

Andreas says: "Looks like we could see the 107% rule have some effect on Saturday"

It is possible but it's worth remembering that the quickest cars will try to get through Q1 using the prime compound which is about a second a lap slower than the option that the backmarkers will be on.

Hamilton's last lap was about a second off the pace. He's probably on a heavier fuel load at the moment, getting an idea of what the soft tyres can cope with in race trim.

Pirelli's Paul Hembery believes there is a 1.2 to 1.5 second time difference between the option and prime tyres this weekend. That's pretty substantial but not as much as we saw in Spain.

McLaren says we can expect less tyre marbles off the racing line this weekend: "Marbles shouldn't be too bad as they mainly occur through high-speed corners - and there's a lack of them here..."

Vettel is out on the supersoft tyres. Perez is also on the option tyres.

Perez goes seventh fastest on his supersoft lap.

Vettel clocks a new fastest time of the weekend with his supersoft tyres - 1:15.739. He still only used half of his KERS allowance.

Massa completed a very ragged lap. Using every bit of track on the exit of the swimming pool and the final corner. He went third fastest, 0.716 off Vettel's best.

Vettel improves to a 1:15.667 but Massa is on a quick lap now as well.

Massa's lap looks a lot cleaner this time around and he goes 0.114 off the Red Bull.

Oliver says: "With always having traffic at this track , is it not necessary to be high on the grid at the start of the race , so qualifying in a good position is better than settling for a lower grid position trying to save tires?

Yep, spot on. It will be interesting to see whether the top teams take two runs in Q3, I suspect they will.

Alonso sets a barnstorming lap on the supersoft tyres with a 1:15.123. He's 0.544 up on Vettel.

Webber goes fourth fastest with a 1:16.807 on the prime tyres.

After backing off on his last lap, Alonso is on another quick lap on the same set of supersoft tyres.

Button and Rosberg are now on the supersofts.

Button goes second fastest with a 1:15.448. Alonso could not improve on his last lap, despite setting a faster first sector.

Rosberg pops up to second place with a 1:14.321, 0.198 off Alonso's Ferrari.

McLaren seems confident: "Jenson's out on the red Super-Softs. They look good on our car!!! "

Schumacher, who missed part of FP1, has finally caught up with his program and is going out on the options: "Michael's car fires up and he's out on the red-marked super soft compound too"

Trulli was following Petrov closely on track but took to the run-off at the second part of the swimming pool complex as he came up on the Renault's gearbox.

We're still waiting for Hamilton to set an option tyre time. Will he steal Alonso's glory before the chequered flag?

Ferrari says: "Felipe is out for the long run on high fuel. Still on option tyres, the supersofts"

Vettel is also back out on supersoft tyres and I suspect a heavy fuel load as he is three seconds off the best time.

The teams fuel the car up heavy at this stage of the weekend to get an idea of how many laps the option tyres will last at the start of the race.

Hamilton is now out on supersoft tyres on his fast lap. He goes fourth, 0.333 off Alonso but with the quickest final sector and is now going for another quick lap.

Hamilton now backs off, so he won't improve on this lap depsite a fast first sector.

Now on his third lap on the option tyres, Hamilton is pushing again.

The McLaren goes second fastest, 0.105 off Alonso at the top of the time sheets.

Alonso is out on heavy fuel and the prime tyres now, so don't expect him to improve anytime soon.

Massa skips the Nouvelle Chicane after struggling to get his car to stop in time for the first apex.

So it looks as though Alonso's time is going to stick at the top until the end of this session. His time was about 0.2 seconds slower than his fastest in this session last year, which was also the fastest Friday time. He was looking very competitive last year but stuffed it in the barriers during FP3 and missed qualifying.

Ferrari is currently the fastest over one lap and confident about their long-run pace: "The long runs do not look too bad on both type of tyres"

It looks like Liuzzi won't be getting out in this session, which means he will have to do all his option tyre work in tomorrow morning's practice session - not ideal.

McLaren says: "Lewis out again - on the Super-Softs."

If he's sticking to the usual Friday practice approach he'll also be on heavy fuel.

The cars are queuing up through the final corner to start a lap. It's very easy to get stuck in traffic round here.

A replay shows that Hamilton and Glock have both recently skipped the Nouvelle Chicane.

All the cars bar the HRT's are out on track now with under ten minutes remaining.

All the cars bar the HRT's are out on track now with under ten minutes remaining.

Schumacher also makes a mistake at the Nouvelle Chicane - that's one of the trickiest parts of the circuit, especially on heavy fuel when the car is harder to slow down.

Ferrari says: "Quick real pit stop for Fernando, who switched to supersoft/option tyres"

Glock masters a big slide into the Nouvelle Chicane - it looked stunning on the super slow motion camera. Great car control.

HRT confirms Liuzzi won't be making a last minute performance due to crash damage to his car: "The front suspension and hydraulic steering system got damaged in the crash. We'll be ready for P3"

Petrov has lost his front wing somewhere on the circuit. A replay shows it was heading out of the tunnel under braking for the Nouvelle Chicane. He lost the rear, slapped the barrier with his right rear and then took his front wing off as the car snapped back again.

Kovalainen also ran wide at turn one in a separate incident. No damage done , but I make that the third time he has made that mistake over the two sessions today.

The session comes to an end with nobody on a lap capable of beating Alonso's. It's been a very good session for Ferrari, who could be a real contender this weekend despite their dismal Spanish Grand Prix last weekend.

It's been another interesting session, but there are still plenty of questions to mull over the next two days before qualifying. I expect we haven't yet seen the best from Red Bull and it's still not clear how the tyres will hold up over a race distance.

Thanks for joining us today and make sure you keep checking the site over the rest of the afternoon for all the reaction from the teams and drivers.