Hamilton Completes McLaren Domination in China Practice

The two McLaren Mercedes MP4-25s driven by Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button seem to run in a league of their own in China, as each driver bagged one practice session win on Friday, on the Shanghai International Circuit.

Following and eventful first practice session in the morning (topped by reigning champion Jenson Button) it was now time for Hamilton to issue a proper response and ended the 90-minute P2 with the best time of 1:35.217. As it happened in the first practice, the McLaren duo dominated the second part of the action, before Mercedes GP's Nico Rosberg split them by posting a time 0.248 seconds slower than Ham.

The McLaren/Mercedes GP sandwich was completed by Michael Schumacher in 4th place, as the German seems to have found his competitive form once again. His time, 1:35.602, was only 0.137 seconds slower than his teammate's, meaning the 7-time world champion is slowly closing the gap on Rosberg.

The Mercedes quad of aces was followed by Red Bull's duo Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber, both more than half of second behind the pace-setter Hamilton. Adrian Sutil put Force India-Mercedes inside the Top 10 with the 7th best time of the day, while followed by Jaime Alguersuari and Robert Kubica.

Ferrari's Fernando Alonso ran on a low profile on Friday and barely managed to set the 10th fastest time of the day, after failing to score a single lap time in P1 (due to an engine failure). His best lap was 0.3 seconds faster than teammate Felipe Massa's, but almost one and a half second slower than Hamilton.

Following his incident in P1, Sebastien Buemi remained in the STR garage for the entire duration of the second practice.

01. Lewis Hamilton (McLaren-Mercedes)                             1:35.217
02. Nico Rosberg (Mercedes)                                               1:35.465
03. Jenson Button (McLaren-Mercedes)                               1:35.593
04. Michael Schumacher (Mercedes)                                    1:35.602
05. Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull-Renault)                                1:35.791
06. Mark Webber (Red Bull-Renault)                                     1:35.995
07. Adrian Sutil (Force India-Mercedes)                                1:36.254
08. Jaime Alguersuari (Toro Rosso-Ferrari)                           1:36.377
09. Robert Kubica (Renault)                                                   1:36.389
10. Fernando Alonso (Ferrari)                                                1:36.604
11. Felipe Massa (Ferrari)                                                      1:36.944
12. Vitaly Petrov (Renault)                                                     1:36.986
13. Pedro de la Rosa (Sauber-Ferrari)                                   1:37.421
14. Kamui Kobayashi (Sauber-Ferrari)                                   1:37.431
15. Rubens Barrichello (Williams-Cosworth)                           1:37.657
16. Vitantonio Liuzzi (Force India-Mercedes)                          1:37.804
17. Nico Hulkenberg (Williams-Cosworth)                               1:37.867
18. Jarno Trulli (Lotus-Cosworth)                                            1:39.624
19. Heikki Kovalainen (Lotus-Cosworth)                                 1:39.947
20. Timo Glock (Virgin-Cosworth)                                           1:40.233
21. Karun Chandhok (HRT-Cosworth)                                    1:41.008
22. Lucas di Grassi (Virgin-Cosworth)                                     1:41.107
23. Bruno Senna (HRT-Cosworth)                                           1:41.345
24. Sebastien Buemi (Toro Rosso-Ferrari)