Indian Grand Prix 2012: Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel sets practice pace

Sebastian Vettel topped the time-sheets in both practice sessions ahead of Sunday’s Indian Grand Prix as Red Bull looked the team to beat.

The defending world champion’s time of one minute 26.221 seconds in the second session was 0.599 seconds faster Vettel’s closest title rival Fernando Alonso, with the Ferrari driver third fastest behind Mark Webber.

McLaren duo Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button were sixth and seventh in Noida.

“The circuit was quite dusty,” said Vettel. “It seemed to improve lap by lap. It depends on when you were on the track compared to the others, how many laps you have, but we can be quite happy.

“There was quite a lot of grip at the end and it just got better. I was surprised with the long runs. The lap times kept getting better.

“We didn’t have any major issues. We were able to test a few things. Now we need to say whether we made progress, and hopefully we can make progress for tomorrow.”

Indian Grand Prix 2012: Combined practice times

1. Sebastian Vettel Germany Red Bull-Renault 1m 26.221s

2. Mark Webber Australia Red Bull-Renault 1m 26.339s

3. Fernando Alonso Spain Ferrari-Ferrari 1m 26.820s

4. Nico Rosberg Germany Mercedes-Mercedes 1m 27.022s

5. Kimi Raikkonen Finland Lotus-Renault 1m 27.030s

6. Lewis Hamilton Britain McLaren-Mercedes 1m 27.131s

7. Jenson Button Britain McLaren-Mercedes 1m 27.182s

8. Nico Hulkenberg Germany Force India-Mercedes 1m 27.233s

9. Romain Grosjean France Lotus-Renault 1m 27.397s

10. Bruno Senna Brazil Williams-Renault 1m 27.738s

11. Paul di Resta Britain Force India-Mercedes 1m 28.004s

12. Sergio Perez Mexico Sauber-Ferrari 1m 28.178s

13. Michael Schumacher Germany Mercedes-Mercedes 1m 28.222s

14. Daniel Ricciardo Australia Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m 28.239s

15. Felipe Massa Brazil Ferrari-Ferrari 1m 28.296s

16. Kamui Kobayashi Japan Sauber-Ferrari 1m 28.455s

17. Pastor Maldonado Venezuela Williams-Renault 1m 28.596s

18. Jean-Eric Vergne France Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m 29.167s

19. Heikki Kovalainen Finland Caterham-Renault 1m 29.320s

20. Vitaly Petrov Russia Caterham-Renault 1m 29.606s

21. Valtteri Bottas Finland Williams-Renault 1m 29.691s*

22. Giedo van der Garde Holland Caterham-Renault 1m 30.896s*

23. Pedro de la Rosa Spain HRT-Cosworth 1m 30.950s

24. Timo Glock Germany Marussia -Cosworth 1m 31.113s

25. Esteban Gutierrez Mexico Sauber-Ferrari 1m 31.212s*

26. Narain Karthikeyan India HRT-Cosworth 1m 31.372s

27. Charles Pic France Marussia -Cosworth 1m 31.493s

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