Welcome back to ESPNF1's live commentary of Friday practice for the European Grand Prix. Mark Webber set the pace for Red Bull in the first session but there should be plenty more to come from the likes of Alonso, Vettel, Button and Hamilton in this session.

The first 90 minutes of practice passed without any major incidents. Nico Hulkenberg tagged the wall under braking for turn 12 and damaged the suspension of the Force India he was borrowing from Paul di Resta. The damage didn't look too bad and the car should be back in one piece for this session

The morning session was fairly overcast but the sun is expected to make an appearance this afternoon.

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Although my forecast could be a bit off as Renault's engine department is reporting some dark looking clouds over the circuit... "Looking stormy overhead and lots of cloud cover. Lower temps mean higher fuel consumption rate"

Lotus is ready to get down to business now that any development work it had planned is done: "This session everyone will be working more on car set-up for the rest of the weekend"

There is still a fair bit of work on di Resta's car to be done. The engine cover is off and there are mechanics working hard on the rear suspension.

Sauber has confirmed that Sergio Perez is feeling absolutely fine after first practice.

D'Ambrosio gets the session underway as he leaves the pits in his Virgin. Petrov and Kovalainen are following him out.

Ferrari says: "Everything is ready for FP2. Three sets of tyres available for this session: two Primes, one Option." That's two medium compounds and two softs for those not familiar with the Option and Prime names for the tyres.

Kovalainen has tweaked his setup according to Lotus: "Heikki with front wing change and adjustment and brake balance change to start this session"

If you have any questions or want to make any comments during the next 90 minutes, feel free to get in touch by clicking on the link at the top of this window.

Petrov goes fastest with a 1:42.232 but he is quickly beaten by Massa with a 1:42.048.

Massa improves to a 1:40.875 as the drivers get closer to the pace we saw in FP1.

Jacob asks: "Is there a common unwritten agreement between the team to test with the same fuel loads/setups during the different training sessions, or is it just best practice that they run the same setups?"

The teams are as secretive as possible about how they run the cars in practice so there is no common agreement. You are right though, they do tend to use the same tyres at the same time. That's because they have just one set of softs they want to use on Fridays and they usually fuel low for their first run on them to get an idea of their ultimate pace - this typically happens 30 minutes from the end of the second session. Then they fuel the cars up and see how the tyres cope with the heavy loads they experience at the start of the race so the times drop off again towards the end of the session.

At the moment the two Ferraris are out on medium compound tyres and are fastest with a 1:40.492 for Alonso and a 1:40.696 for Massa.

... but as I type, Vettel goes quickest of all with a 1:40.062. He was also on the medium compound.

Di Resta is going to have to to sit tight for now as his car still hasn't been repaired from Hulkenberg's crash in the morning session. "Still repairs going on to Paul's car. Will be a while before he heads out on track," says Force India.

Webber is now second fastest with a 1:40.341, that's 0.279 off Vettel.

Vettel dips under the 1:40 barrier with a 1:39.790.

Webber improves to a 1:40.006.

Alonso improves to second fastest with a 1:39.960. It looked like quite a scrappy lap so there is probably more time to be found from the Ferrari.

Virgin reports: "A lot of drivers flat-spotting tyres out there this afternoon..."

Webber takes back second from Alonso and goes 0.002 off Vettel's best.

Maldonado is the first to make the switch to soft compound tyres... he completes a tidy lap to go fifth fastest, about 1.7 seconds faster than he was on mediums.

Trulli is still trying to get to the bottom of the problems he's been having with the 'feel' of the Lotus' power steering: "Jarno and his engineer Gianluca working on his power steering. Preparing the car for another run now"

Di Resta is still waiting for his car to be repaired: "Guys are working flat out to get Paul's car ready. Adrian getting set for run number two of the afternoon."

Maldonado sets another competitive time on the softs to go fourth fastest - 0.511 off Vettel's time on the medium compound.

Kobayashi is also on the softs but is still some way off the pace. He's locking up a fair bit and missing apices by several metres.

And Kobayashi has a huge lock up into the final corner, confirming that the balance of that Sauber is a little out of whack.

Vettel takes another tenth out of his first sector time but is still on the medium compound.

Alonso set a brilliant middle sector but a minor mistake and a lack of traction from his used medium compound tyres prevented him from snatching the fastest time from Vettel.

Renault has been busy working on Petrov's car: "Vitaly's back out after a longer than normal stop, rear suspension adjustment needed rather more tools than usual... Tools included pliers, tin snips and a large mallet."

Button is having a bad time and reports that he is really struggling with rear grip: "Big oversteer at high speed." He's 11th fastest.

Alonso was on another flying lap but got blocked behind Karthikeyan in the final corner. The HRT was heading for the pits but that didn't stop Alonso waving his hands in frustration.

Albert asks: "What is happening with the McLarens? They have done few laps so far."

It's a good point. We know Button is struggling for rear end grip and has gone back to the pits to fins a solution. Hamilton is out on track at the moment and is ninth fastest with nine laps on the board.

McLaren Twitter feed adds: "So Lewis has gone out - he's still not fully happy with the balance, so we've made some more changes for this run. Let's see..."

Matthijs asks: "Why was there such a big gap between the two Red Bulls in FP1?"

Apparently Vettel was testing Red Bull's engine map for the upcoming British Grand Prix where off-throttle blwon diffusers are going to severely restricted.

On the 2.5 second gap, Christian Horner said: "There is a fairly simple explanation. We were running different programmes on the cars. We tried several different parts and got some good information. We are no longer allowed to test during the season so we only have a chance on Friday to try some things, particularly the first session.

On the off-throttle blown diffuser ban he added: "We know what benefit we get but not what benefits the others get. In reality the same teams will probably be at the front, but until Silverstone it's not possible to predict."

Heidfeld has gone fastest with a 1:39.040 on the soft tyres.

Webber is back on track. He's only completed 8 laps so far in this session.

Rosberg is now out on the softs and on the fastest lap yet ... he sets the fastest second sector too ... and clocks a 1:39.012 overall, the fastest today and 0.028 faster than Heidfeld. He lost a bit of time in the high-speed final sector compared to the Renault.

Webber goes quickest of all with a 1:38.531 on the soft tyres, but Vettel is now starting a lap on a new set of softs so that could well be beaten.

Vettel sets the fastest first sector, 0.06 up on Webber ... he's still ahead through sector two, 0.08 up on Webber but not faster than Rosberg's sector two ... and Vettel finds 0.2 seconds on Webber in the final sector and 0.7 seconds on Rosberg. He sets a new fastest time with a 1:38.265.

Webber's next attempt has been ruined by Maldonado in sector three and the Red Bull aborts the lap and returns to the pits.

Massa is out on softs, we're still waiting on Alonso.

Meanwhile, Vettel is going even quicker on his next hot lap. Massa is a tiny bit quicker in sector two but sets the third fastest time overall, 0.229 off Vettel, who aborted his last lap and returned to the pits.

Di Resta is facing another 15 minutes until his car is ready. Alguersuari also hasn't completed a lap with a gearbox problem.

Hamilton bolts on the soft tyres and goes fastest with a 1:38.195. He was 0.25 seconds faster than Vettel going into the final sector and managed to hold onto a 0.070 second lead by the line.

Alonso goes fastest of all on his set of fresh soft tyres. He set a 1:38.184, 0.011 seconds faster than Hamilton. Less than a tenth of a second splits the top three.

Hamilton is pushing hard on his second lap, but perhaps a bit too hard as he is 0.2 seconds down on Alonso through the second sector.

ESPNF1 columnist Karun Chandhok reckons were in for an exciting qualifying session on Saturday: "Looking at the short option tyre runs today, looks like we're in for a a mighty fight for pole tomorrow"

Alonso goes even quicker with a 1:37.968, and that was with a massive lock up into the final corner. Impressive stuff from Ferrari and Alonso.

Di Resta's car is very nearly ready.

It looks as though the front runners have done all the low-fuel soft tyre running they are planning to do in this session. Now the teams tend to brim the tanks and send the drivers back out to see how the soft tyres react to a heavy fuel load - the result is much slower lap times.

Shripad asks: "Why has the FIA suddenly introduced the engine mapping ban? And what effect will it have on the cars?"

To clarify, its a ban on changing the engine map between qualifying and the race. Since midway through last years teams have been developing engine maps that continue to pump gases through the exhaust at high pressures when the driver is off the throttle. The FIA does not like this practice which it believes is wasteful and contravenes rules relating to the driver having an effect on the aerodynamics of the car. The ban that will be introduced this weekend - on chnaging engine maps between quali and the race - is also believed to be against the spirit of the parc ferme rules which do not allow the engineers to work on the car after qualifying.

All the front running cars should be pegged back by this change but it is though Red Bull could suffer most as it has had an inexplicable advantage in qualifying pace over race pace this season.

Back to the action, and the top ten cars in the timings are back on track but they are all on heavier fuel loads and none of them look likely to knock Alonso off the top spot.

Pirelli says: "Bearing in mind track evolution, the soft tyre seems to be about 1s per lap quicker than the medium."

Di Resta is leaving the garage with just ten minutes of his session remaining. It will be his first lap of the weekend. He has lost out on a huge amount of setup time because of Hulkenberg's crash in FP1 and is now facing an uphill struggle to get in the groove ahead of qualifying.

McLaren says: "So the drivers are getting into their longer runs - laptimes in the mid 1m40s."

Alguersuari is still in the garage with his gearbox problem. Red Bull boss Dietrich Mateschitz is also in the Toro Rosso garage to keep an eye on things.

Paul asks what the pole time was last year on the Bridgestones. The answer is 1:37.587 set by Vettel.

Massa become the latest driver to lock his tyres into the final corner. He locked the right then the left and ran wide.

Di Resta is getting up to speed on his seventh lap and is now 0.7 seconds off his team-mate Sutil.

The session comes to an end with Alonso holding on to the fastest lap ahead of Hamilton and Vettel.

No major incidents in the session but it's very close at the top and we might just see a car other than a Red Bull on pole position for the first time this season on Saturday.

To find out what the drivers thought of the practice sessions make sure you keep checking the website over the rest of the afternoon for all the latest comments and reaction. We'll be back for more live commentary tomorrow so make sure you join us for that too.