Red Bull dominates second practice

F1 Grand Prix, GP Belgium, Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps

Red Bull Racing emerged as the main contender during FP2 as both its cars led the times, 8 tenths ahead of anybody else. A puncture for Vettel somewhat spoiled the party for the team

At the start of second practice, the sun is out and the track has dried completely, shaking up the game after FP1 was dominated by managing the damp track. Following the reduced track time of the morning, the track is filled with action from the first minute.

Only 15 minutes into the session, the times have tumbled quickly and Sebastian Vettel emerged on top, faster than Massa, Alonso and Webber. Only Perez and Hamilton haven't set a time yet in this session.

As the times continued to improve, Red Bull's pace clearly started to show. Vettel, running a lower downforce setup dominated S1 and S3 to retain the top spot on the timesheet while Mark Webber moved up into second as his slightly higher downforce setup makes him fastest in the middle sector which includes most fast sweeping corners around Spa-Francorchamps.

Grosjean is the closest challenger in the first phase, even though he's 8 tenths off of the Bulls. His Lotus though seems to be much closer in the longer runs as his pace looks quite good as drivers do a few longer runs.

Massa is 4th fastest and keeps the hopes up a bit for Ferrari, as the Italian team struggled mainly with Alonso's car. Initially the Spaniard was seen with his high downforce rear wing from FP1, followed by a switch to Massa's lower downforce set-up, before again reverting to the higher downforce configuration again.

Vergne sneaked in well in 5th, faster than Raikkonen, Alonso, Perez, Rosberg and Di Resta.

One point of interest is Vettel's right rear tyre puncture at about 30 minutes from the end of the session. It's unclear what caused it, but the tyre thread was torn off of the tyre wall when the German returned to the pitlane. His slow return however made sure that the his car's floor wasn't damaged too badly.

Giedo van der Garde also drew some attention as a little moment of oversteer through Curve Paul Frère made him veer off track into the tyre barriers, causing damage to 3 corners of his car.