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Vettel goes fastest on Friday afternoon
Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull Racing shot to the top as the second 90-minute practice period was staged in Italy on Friday afternoon. Local fans the Tifosi were pleased to see the Ferraris of Alonso and Massa progress to second and third positions as the McLaren duo, who topped the timesheets for nearly two thirds of the session, dropped to fourth and fifth.
The sun continued to shine at the parkland track as McLaren looked to keep up their pack-leading pace of the morning session, in which Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton – the former still with the f-duct this afternoon but the latter now without and therefore with a more conventional Monza rear wing - sandwiched Vettel in the top three.
However, a charge from the German shortly before ten past three saw him displace Alonso for P1, with the Spaniard having done the same to Massa.
The Brazilian suffered by far the luckiest escape of the session, despite his car's floor being damaged when running out wide on the exit of the Parabolica just days after the 20th anniversary of a similar moment which resulted in a huge accident for Derek Warwick's Lotus in the race.
Other off-track moments this time included Vitaly Perov's Renault at the Rettifilo before Nico Rosberg's Mercedes repeated the feat, Michael Schumacher's Mercedes briefly flew into the Parabolica gravel trap and Sébastien Buemi overshot the Roggia Chicane. Another car to meet the gravel was the Sauber of Kamui Kobayashi, which suffered an excursion at the second Lesmo.
Mid-session problems for Hamilton resulted in a broken right-front wing endplate for the 2008 World Champion; the cause of the damage remains unknown although it is likely that the Stevenage man clouted one of Monza's infamous kerbs, which at Turns 1 and 4 have been modified this year in order to prevent cars riding them from becoming airborne.
Both Red Bull teams also suffered woes, with the Toro Rosso of Jaime Alguersuari pulling over exiting the Roggia before second-placed championship man Mark Webber's Red Bull Racing machine ground to a half between the two Lesmos in the closing stages, with the Australian having been instructed to stop when team technicians discovered that a sudden loss of water pressure threatened an expiration of the engine.
At the back of the field, Bruno Senna's luckless Friday continued as the Hispania driver - who set no lap time this morning following a brake fluid leak – completed only a single tour before mechanics were forced to retrieve the car from the end of the pit lane. With only ten minutes of the session remaining, the Spanish outfit attempted a final run although the car duly broke down just moments after rejoining the track.
The third free practice session at Monza will begin at 11am local time on Saturday (BST +1)
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