• Chinese Grand Prix - FP2

Massa heads Raikkonen in FP2

ESPN Staff
April 12, 2013
Felipe Massa edged out Kimi Raikkonen as Sebastian Vettel struggled © Getty Images
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Felipe Massa set the fastest time of the second practice session ahead of the Chinese Gran Prix.

With Nico Rosberg having topped the timesheets at the end of the first session, Massa was the quickest man on the soft tyre in the afternoon to edge out Kimi Raikkonen in to second place. Massa's best time of 1:38.340 was just 0.152s quicker than the Lotus behind him.

Massa's team-mate Fernando Alonso was third quickest, and impressively set a fastest final sector on his lap as he looked to preserve tyres, with the softs allegedly struggling to hold on for more than one lap. Nico Rosberg followed up his impressive FP1 showing with the fourth quickest time - almost 0.5s slower than Massa - as Mercedes continued to show encouraging pace.

Fifth quickest was Mark Webber - comfortable outpacing Red Bull team-mate Sebastian Vettel down in 10th by 0.7s.Jenson Button was sixth fastest as a late lap on the soft tyres for McLaren allowed him to leapfrog Lewis Hamilton and the two Force India's.

Teams then focused on long runs to analyse potential tyre life, with the front left under particular stress around the Shanghai circuit. Button was first to have a major problem as he locked up in to the Turn 14 hairpin and suffered a delamination as a result.

Button's team-mate Sergio Perez followed up his crash at the end of FP1 with a high-speed spin early in the second session. Perez went off at turn eight, sliding backwards through the gravel and nudging the barrier with his right rear tyre. He returned to the pits as Adrian Sutil also spun off at the same corner a few moments later.

It was also a difficult session for both Valtteri Bottas who was confined to the Williams garage for much of the first hour, while Max Chilton was force to stop after four laps of running as an oil pressure issue forced his engine to shut down. Chilton did rejoin in the final ten minutes but another issue which saw oil coming out of the rear of his Marussia saw him stop on track once again on his out lap.

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