After setting the fastest time at the end of the morning running, the reigning world champion was one of the four drivers to drop under 1:38 seconds in the afternoon, while closely followed by McLaren's duo Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button, and Mercedes GP's Nico Rosberg.
After a session that saw multiple drivers take on the leading position in the timing reports, the pleasant surprise of the Friday running was undoubtedly Mercedes GP, after having put both its drivers inside the Top 5. Rosberg was followed by Michael Schumacher in 5th place, while Ferrari had to settle for the 6th best time of the day, courtesy of Felipe Massa.
Fernando Alonso enjoyed little track time in FP2 due to a hydraulic problem with his 150 Italia, exiting the pits late in the session. Without many laps under his belt on the option soft tire, the Spaniard managed only the 14th best time of the session, more than 2 seconds behind Vettel. During his quick lap however, Alonso did not use the DRS at all.
Adrian Sutil (Force India Mercedes) was 7th fastest, while Renault duo Nick Heidfeld and Vitaly Petrov had to settle for the 8th and 9th best times of the day. However, after a troublesome morning, Heidfeld again had difficulties keeping his R31 on the track and at one point made contact with the barriers in Turn 12.
He was afterwards called to the pits by his mechanics and was able to resume action in the last half an hour.
The other important news of the day was that both HRT drivers Narain Karthikeyan and Vitantonio Liuzzi (the latter having done only one timed lap on the Chinese circuit in the afternoon) managed better times than Virgin's Timo Glock and Jerome D'Ambrosio.
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