Sebastian Vettel beat the McLarens to the fastest Practice Two time at Abu Dhabi GP

Sebastian Vettel edged a ding-dong battle with the McLarens to return to the top of the timesheet after an absorbing Practice Two in Abu Dhabi.

The World Champion, seven tenths off Lewis Hamilton's stunning morning pace, showed that Red Bull had certainly been keeping something in hand by setting the best lap of the day early on in the evening session at Yas Marina, with his chief McLaren rival initially struggling to respond.
Opting to run a longer first stint than his chief rivals, Hamilton did eventual re-establish his supremacy but the order was flipped again when the field switched to the soft tyres as Vettel found significantly more speed to take over at the top again, while the McLarens only found marginal time.
With a best time of 1:41.751 Vettel therefore ended up 0.168s ahead of the morning pacesetter with Jenson Button a further half a second back in the sister McLaren.
 
Mark Webber was fourth in the other Red Bull but the Australian was forced to abandon his race simulation, and the session entirely, after a water leak developed from the bottom of his RB8.
With McLaren and Red Bull nonetheless once setting the low-fuel pace, Fernando Alonso and Ferrari again failed to join the battle for the top positions and ended up eight tenths of a second back in seventh place after a less than eye-catching first day in the updated F2012.
Indeed both red cars slipped behind the two Lotuses, Romain Grosjean and Kimi Raikkonen fifth and sixth respectively after the E20 made a bigger step forward than most on the otherwise problematic soft tyres.
Pastor Maldonado capped an encouraging opening day for Williams in ninth ahead of Sauber's Sergio Perez, as Mercedes dropped out of the top ten.
The session as a whole was split into three intriguing parts, with Hamilton continuing to hold a distinct edge on the hard tyres at the start, before Vettel took over on the softs, and finally a more mixed picture on the long runs which provoked as many questions as it answered.

 

Ferrari, as ever - this time with Felipe Massa, more so than Alonso who appeared to be running a slightly different programme - looked more competitive during the latter phase of proceedings although, according to Sky Sports F1's Anthony Davidson, it was the World Champion's Red Bull that appeared quickest of all.
"I'm more than convinced that Sebastian Vettel has the pace to match, if not better, them all on the long runs," Anthony declared. "His car is looking very good."
Speaking immediately after the session, McLaren Team Principal Martin Whitmarsh admitted that, with not all the top runners - including his own driver, Hamilton who also ran into more steering wheel issues - completing clean race simulations, the picture was rather difficult to call heading into Saturday.
"That was ok," Whitmarsh told Sky Sports F1. "A reasonable day.
"Sebastian looks quite strong, but we've got some good data and some good heavy running. Fernando was struggling on low fuel and obviously wasn't on heavy fuel at the end. So that was difficult to judge."
http://www1.skysports.com/formula1/report/12433/8219542/sebastian-vettel-beat-the-mclarens-to-the-fastest-practice-two-time-at-abu-dhabi-gp