Reigning world champion Jenson Button produced the fastest lap of the day in the second free practice at the Turkish Grand Prix in Istanbul.
utton’s lap of one minute, 28.280 seconds would have been fast enough to secure pole position last season, and left the McLaren driver one hundredth of a second ahead of championship co-leader Mark Webber.
Yet Webber’s session ended badly, with the Australian’s engine appearing to blow with five minutes left of the session. His car ended up rolling back down one of the steep hills on the undulating circuit.
Webber’s Red Bull team-mate Sebastian Vettel was third fastest while Button’s fellow McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton was fourth.
Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso improved on a disappointing first practice session to end up fifth fastest. Yahoo! Eurosport
Alonso completed a congested top five, just half-a-second behind Button, prompting Ferrari’s chief engineer Chris Dyer to tweet via Twitter: “All in all a reasonable session for us. I believe we can be competitive both in qualifying and in the race.”
And Button said he, too, was optimistic of a strong race on Sunday.
“This is such a great circuit, and the grip didn’t seem too bad today,” the 30-year-old said.
“It also seems very tight between all the front-runners - the times are very close. Our car doesn’t seem to be performing too badly, so I’m happy with today’s running.
“I have no doubts that in qualifying the Red Bulls will pull out something extra, which they always seem able to do.
“We haven’t made too many changes to the car for this race, but we’ve got a chance this weekend, and I think we’ll be able to compete with them.” BBC Sport
Mercedes duo Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher were sixth and seventh respectively, ahead of the Renault pairing of Robert Kubica and Vitaly Petrov, the latter 1.2s slower than Button.
Felipe Massa, meanwhile, was 10th quickest 1.340s off the pace - the Ferrari driver apparently struggling on a track where he won in consecutive years between 2006 and 2008.
Force India’s Adrian Sutil ended the afternoon 11th having overcome an accident at the track’s formidable Turn Eight at the end of the morning session.
Heikki Kovalainen continues to edge newcomers Lotus towards the established teams, the Finn 0.7secs behind the 18th-placed Toro Rosso of Jaime Alguersuari after finishing half a second down in the morning.
Hispania Racing’s Karun Chandhok, who spun at one point, finished bottom of the timesheets almost 5.5secs behind Button and 0.3secs adrift of team-mate Bruno Senna. SkySports
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