United States – Free Practice 2: Vettel Stays on Course

The temperature has risen slightly compared to this morning as the mercury shows 19 degrees in the air for a track at 30 degrees. The drivers are also heating things up by grinding the asphalt, with an initial time set by Räikkönen at 1:46.770. Quickly, other drivers take the top spot on the leaderboard and after the first quarter-hour, it’s Nico Rosberg who takes the lead with a lap completed in 1:39.842. The German driver is ahead of Webber and Alonso. Sebastian Vettel, the man who was over a second ahead of everyone else this morning, is only sixth at this point in the session. The world championship leader is in his garage to fix a problem with the cooling system of his RB8.

The track remains very green, and some drivers are taking a few detours into the large run-off areas of this Circuit of the Americas. A new circuit also means there’s a lot of work to be done on setup. At Ferrari, they’re busy with the rear end of Alonso’s car.

At the half-hour mark, Rosberg still holds the benchmark time, but it’s Felipe Massa who positions himself as the runner-up to the Mercedes driver, two-tenths behind. Impressive performance by the Toro Rosso team, with Ricciardo in 9th and Vergne in 10th. The two drivers had already managed quite well this morning with 12th and 13th fastest times in the first free practice session. Romain Grosjean improves his time but complains about the rear end behavior of his Lotus, while Webber takes the lead with the fastest time of 1:39.485, with 55 minutes remaining in this session. Alonso also ups the pace, climbing to second place behind Webber, just five-thousandths behind. Petrov switches to medium tires (the softest offered by Pirelli on this circuit) and performs a small spin at the end of the pit straight. At the back of the field, both HRT cars have yet to set a time, although Karthikeyan was the first to go out this afternoon.

At the 45-minute mark, Felipe Massa takes the lead with a time of 1:39.106. The Brazilian continues his momentum by improving his first sector and his lap time in the following lap, 1:39.061, while Vettel waits in his box as his mechanics work to resolve the issue with his RB8. It’s also noteworthy that both HRTs have finally recorded times, with De La Rosa and Karthikeyan bringing up the rear. Kamui Kobayashi is not really celebrating as he is only 22nd with 40 minutes left in the session, while Pérez is 9th at that moment.

Mark Webber is the first to go under the minute 38 mark a little before the last half hour of these FP2. The Australian holds a time of 1:38.958. Back on track, Vettel moves up to fourth place behind his teammate, Hamilton, and Button. Kobayashi is also back in the cockpit of his car and is in 16th place.

In turn 19, a slight misunderstanding between Vergne and Kovalainen ended with the Frenchman losing parts of his front wing and the Caterham driver with a shredded tire.

With 15 minutes remaining, it’s Vettel who leads everyone with a best time of 1:37.718. Webber is in second ahead of Alonso. A bit further back, Kobayashi has placed 13th just behind his teammate while Bruno Senna is in a nice 8th place. Charles Pic is 9 tenths behind Glock with Petrov’s Caterham positioned between the two Marussia cars. In these final minutes, the times aren’t changing much, except for Kobayashi’s 9th place time, as the teams are on race simulations, and thus Vettel finishes on top as he did in free practice 1. Webber, Alonso, Hamilton, and Button complete the top 5.

Free Practice 2 Results of the 2012 United States Grand Prix: