Felipe Massa emerged fastest from a second practice session at the Shanghai International Circuit on Friday in which lap times were heavily affected by rubber thrown off Pirelli's soft-compound tyres.
The Brazilian lapped his
Ferrari in 1m 35.340s on the soft tyres, but it was his long run pace on the mediums that was really impressive and bodes well for the Scuderia's race chances.
Kimi Raikkonen got closest to his outright pace with 1m 35.492s for
Lotus, and
Fernando Alonso took third place for Ferrari with 1m 35.755s.
Nico Rosberg, who had set the pace initially, rounded out the top four for
Mercedes with 1m 35.819s.
As the session reached the hour mark there was so much rubber off line that going any faster wasnt possible and teams concentrated on longer runs.
That left
Mark Webber fifth for Red Bull on 1m 36.092s, from
Jenson Buttons
McLaren on 1m 36.432s, the unwell
Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes on 1m 36.496s, the
Force Indias of
Adrian Sutil and
Paul di Resta on 1m 36.514s and 1m 36.595s,
Sebastian Vettel's Red Bull on 1m 36.791s,
Sergio Perez's McLaren on 1m 36.940s and
Romain Grosjean's Lotus on 1m 36.963s.
Perez began his session as he ended the previous one - with another minor accident, this time tapping a tyre wall with the back end of his McLaren after a high-speed spin. Sutil also went off early on.
Esteban Gutierrez was
Sauber's lead runner in 13th on 1m 37.103s ahead of
Daniel Ricciardo's Toro Rosso on 1m 37.206s. His team mate
Jean-Eric Vergne was next up with 1m 38.127s ahead of
Valtteri Bottas's
Williams, which stayed in the pits for some time with an indisclosed problem before the Finn lapped it in 1m 38.185s.
An unhappy Nico Hulkenberg finished with a best time of 1m 38.211s for Sauber, just quicker than
Pastor Maldonados Williams on 1m 38.276s.
Jules Bianchi did another tremendous job for
Marussia, with the 19th fastest time of 1m 38.725s.
Giedo van der Garde was another to go off track on his way to 1m 39.271s, then came the Dutchman's Caterham team mate
Charles Pic on 1m 39.814s. At the rear,
Max Chilton lost time with an engine oil pressure problem, got going again to post 1m 43.227s, but later stopped out on the track again with a suspected return of the symptoms. (Formula1.com)
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