GreenBkk.com Formula 1 | Practice Two - Hamilton top as floodlight follows sunlight

Practice Two - Hamilton top as floodlight follows sunlight

McLaren ruled the roost in Abu Dhabi on Friday afternoon, as Formula One racing went into the twilight zone around 1700 hours local time. And both Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso and Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel fell foul of a slippery Turn One and touched the outer wall in their efforts to keep up.

Vettel and Webber set the initial pace for Red Bull before the sun began to slip from the sky, running the soft Pirellis as the McLarens clocked fast times on the mediums. Then after Alonso had a spell out front for Ferrari, McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton took control with 1m 39.586s and team mate Jenson Button trimmed down to 1m 39.785s, 0.199s slower. Alonso’s best was 1m 39.971s before he slid off backwards into the wall.

Vettel had earlier gone off sideways there and for a while stood by the side of the track assessing the performance of rivals’ cars, but Red Bull were able to retrieve the RB7 and he got out again with 10 minutes to spare, albeit without improving on his 1m 40.132s best.

That left the world champion only sixth, as Ferrari’s Felipe Massa had worked down to 1m 39.980s for fourth and Webber recovered from a spin to post 1m 40.104s.

Michael Schumacher spent a lot of time off the official track and in the colourful run-off areas, but lapped his Mercedes seventh fastest in 1m 40.553s, ahead of the Force Indias of Adrian Sutil and Paul di Resta on 1m 40.951s and 1m 41.021s respectively.

Behind them, Kamui Kobayashi led Sauber team mate Sergio Perez, 1m 41.490s to 1m 41.565s, with Sebastien Buemi 12th for Toro Rosso on 1m 41.680s ahead of Vitaly Petrov in the lead Renault on 1m 41.947s, Toro Rosso’s Jaime Alguersuari on 1m 41.983s, Renault’s Bruno Senna on 1m 42.369s, and the Williamses of Rubens Barrichello and Pastor Maldonado on 1m 42.798s and 1m 42.910s respectively.

Heikki Kovalainen continued to lead the Lotus brigade with 1m 43.562s to Jarno Trulli’s 1m 44.050s. Nico Rosberg was trying lots of new bits on his Mercedes and thus did not improve on 1m 44.265s for 20th, while Virgin got going after not running their extra soft test tyres this morning; Timo Glock ran 1m 45.486s for 21st ahead of Jerome D’Ambrosio on 1m 46.142s, which left the Belgian just ahead of the HRTs of Tonio Liuzzi and Daniel Ricciardo. The Italian spent an hour in the pits with a mechanical problem but returned to lap in 1m 46.249s, while the Australian managed 1m 46.328s.

Credit: Formula One Administration Ltd (www.formula1.com)