Practice goes by the form book

Sebastian Vettel
12 April 2012

Red Bull duo Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber will again be the men to beat in Sunday's Brazilian Grand Prix following another dominant day of practice.

Vettel and Webber have locked out the front row of the grid at each of the last two races in Japan and Korea following qualifying, and they look poised for a hat-trick at Interlagos on Saturday.

After finishing just under half-a-second clear of Webber at the end of the morning's 90-minute session, Vettel saw that gap cut to just over a 10th of a second later on. The 23-year-old German posted his fastest lap in the afternoon with one minute 11.968secs.

Around the 4.309km circuit, the second shortest on the calendar behind Monaco, Webber was a mere 0.104secs adrift, with Fernando Alonso third.

It is understood championship leader Alonso is currently walking a tightrope as the suggestion is he is on his final engine that has already run a number of miles. Ferrari have been desperately attempting to manage the engine situation with Alonso's car as he used up his permitted eight for the season some time ago.

Since then they have been swapping and changing engines, trying to extend their life, only for one to give way in the dying moments of first practice. It was evident, however, they were already aware of the situation as they admitted just as practice started they would be changing it anyway given the lack of life left in it.

Alonso managed 36 laps in the afternoon, finishing 0.360secs down on Vettel, with Lewis Hamilton fourth in his McLaren, sandwiching the Ferraris as Felipe Massa was fifth.

Renault's Robert Kubica was sixth, followed by reigning champion Jenson Button in his McLaren, the Briton 1.238secs off the pace and apparently struggling with rear wing issues.

Sauber's Nick Heidfeld was a creditable eighth, with the Mercedes duo of Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher ninth and 10th.

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