Sebastian Vettel has returned to the top of the timesheets in Austin after he and teammate Mark Webber forged a Red Bull one-two during the second free practice session for the United States Grand Prix on Friday.
The German driver was pushed by his teammate for the fastest time, but the team appears to be in a class of its own in Austin as Vettel chases an unprecedented eighth consecutive win in a single season.
FP2 began without any problems unlike the session earlier today, and the entire field came out early in order to make up for the time lost this morning due to fog and a problem with the medical helicopter. Lotus set the early pace as Romain Grosjean and stand-in Heikki Kovalainen moved up to P1 and P2, but Sebastian Vettel soon resumed normal service after finishing down in eighteenth place this morning to go fastest by seven-tenths of a second. Mark Webber soon reduced the gap and moved up into second place ahead of the Mercedes pair of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, suggesting that the pecking order had not changed a great deal since Abu Dhabi.
With the first runs taking place on the hard tire, the drivers soon switched to the medium compound to gauge their one lap pace for qualifying. Nico Rosberg was the first driver to overhaul Vettel at the top, only for Webber to go faster still ahead of Vettel’s second run. The four-time world champion quickly re-established his dominance though to go fastest once again. Heikki Kovalainen was also impressive, going fifth-fastest, almost two-tenths ahead of Grosjean in the sister Lotus. Esteban Gutierrez continued his good form from FP1 to lie sixth-fastest in front of a large contingency of Mexican fans, whilst Sergio Perez finished down in thirteenth place.
The pecking order did not change for the final half an hour of the session as the teams began to focus on their long runs. However, Max Chilton’s session came to a premature end after spinning out at the final corner, bringing out the yellow flags and forcing a tractor to come and lift away his Marussia. Nico Hulkenberg complained over the radio that the marshals were taking too long to recover the car, but with only a couple of minutes remaining, very running time was lost.
At the front though, Red Bull continued to dominate proceedings with both Vettel and Webber putting in strong displays. With the United States Grand Prix being the only race on the current calendar that Red Bull has not won, the team will be pushing to finish the season in style by righting that wrong this weekend.
