Vettel back on top in Singapore



World champion Sebastian Vettel was comfortably top of the timesheets in the second practice session ahead of the Singapore Grand Prix.

The Red Bull driver set the early practice two pace with a 1m47.375s lap - 0.7 seconds ahead of team-mate Mark Webber as the champion squad dominated the initial running.
Those times stood until drivers began switching to super-soft tyres in the second half of the session. Ferrari's Felipe Massa was the first of the frontrunners to do so and clocked a 1m47.120s to go quickest with 41 minutes to go. His team-mate Fernando Alonso then beat that time by 0.6s 10 minutes later to hit the front.
Vettel backed off on his first super-soft lap when he encountered Timo Glock's Virgin, but his second attempt resulted in a 1m46.374s, putting him on top by 0.201s over Alonso. With the top teams all switching to long runs thereafter, Vettel's position was secure.

Lewis Hamilton took third for McLaren, while his team-mate Jenson Button's evening ended very early when he slid straight on at Turn 14 just before the session's halfway point. Although Button stopped without hitting the barriers, he was unable to make his car reverse back on course, so had to abandon the McLaren. He tumbled to 10th in the times as a result.

Massa was pushed back to fourth in the end, just ahead of Mark Webber in the second Red Bull.
Michael Schumacher's strong recent run continued with sixth place for Mercedes, followed by Adrian Sutil's Force India and the Saubers of Sergio Perez and Kamui Kobayashi. The latter enlivened the evening with a wild misjudging of the Turn 10 chicane that resulted in the Sauber flying through the air over the middle kerb.
A tough night for Toro Rosso saw Jaime Alguersuari sidelined in the garage with a mechanical issue after 14 laps, though his time before then was still good enough for 11th, and Sebastien Buemi derange his suspension when he made firm contact with the wall at the penultimate corner.

Schumacher also hit the barriers, in his case at Turn 3, as he almost spun the Mercedes on an early run. But the wall nudged the car back onto the correct line and Schumacher continued without damage.
Paul di Resta spent most of the session in the pits while Force India attended to a time-consuming issue on his car. He got back out with a few minutes to go, and was able to lift himself from 17th to 13th.