• Spanish Grand Prix - Second Practice

Vettel reasserts Red Bull's dominance in Barcelona

ESPNF1 Staff
May 7, 2010 « Michelin still wants tyre war | »
The Red Bull looks like the car to beat in Spain © Getty Images
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Red Bull gave a warning of things to come during practice for the Spanish Grand Prix, setting the first and second fastest times at the Circuit de Catalunya on Friday.

Sebastian Vettel led the way with a time of 1:19.965, two tenths faster than his team-mate Mark Webber and comfortably clear of the team's nearest rival Michael Schumacher. On hard tyres the Red Bull drivers looked beatable, but when they bolted on the softer Bridgestones - which will be used in the all-important qualifying session tomorrow - they were in a class of their own.

Despite being 0.792 seconds off the Vettel's best, Schumacher will be pleased with his performance which saw him clock a time nearly half-a-second faster than team-mate Nico Rosberg. A raft of new updates to the Mercedes this weekend appear to have favoured the seven-time world champion, who looked far more confident with his car on corner entry than at previous races. The radical engine cover on the W01 drew the most glances, but it is likely to be the lengthened wheelbase and change in weight distribution that has made the difference.

Ferrari's Fernando Alonso was fourth fastest as his team continued to work on its version of the F-duct. The car appeared more settled than in the first session and Alonso leapfrogged the McLarens in the time sheets. So far this season Ferrari has used Fridays to focus on race set-up, so there could be more to come from the F10 over one lap on Saturday. Once again Felipe Massa was off the pace of Alonso as both sides of the garage ran their own back-to-back comparisons with and without the F-duct.

McLaren failed to improve on its first practice time and finished the session with Lewis Hamilton 1.2 seconds adrift of Vettel. Jenson Button was a further 0.173 seconds off the pace in ninth, slower than the Renault of Robert Kubica and the Ferrari of Massa.

Robert Kubica stayed with the pace of the top four in practice © Sutton Images
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Kubica, whose car has not received any major upgrades this weekend, had a solid afternoon while team-mate Vitaly Petrov struggled - ending up in the gravel on one occasion - and could only manage the 16th fastest time.

But it was his fellow rookie Nico Hulkenberg who made the biggest mistake of the day, bringing out a red flag when he buried his Williams into the inside tyre barrier coming out of turn nine. Huklenberg ran wide and lost the rear end of the car on the Astroturf, causing it to swing widely across the track and into the wall. Although the impact wiped off the nose of the car, Williams reported no serious damage to the chassis and will have it patched up in time for Saturday morning practice.

Sauber appeared to make progress with its car, setting the 11th and 13th fastest times on a similar pace with Force India. There are still concerns about reliability, however, as de la Rosa had to sit out the majority of the morning session with a gearbox problem.

At the very back of the field Lotus stole a march on its rivals Virgin and HRT, with Jarno Trulli setting the best time of the three teams 4.2 seconds off Vettel. The car has a heavily revised front wing that the team was hoping would get it within 3.5 seconds of the front runners. Karun Chandhok got his first chance to drive the very slightly modified HRT after making way for Christian Klien to test the car in first practice. He was over a tenth faster than team-mate Bruno Senna and both were quicker than the Virgin of Timo Glock.

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