Having taken third and fifth places respectively in the opening session, Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel found more pace in the afternoon, with Vettel moving to the top of the standings and Webber finishing just three hundredths of a second behind his team-mate in second place. 
 
Indeed, after Mercedes’ Michael Schumacher and Ferrari’s Felipe Massa had briefly both held top spot in the early part of the session, the Red Bull pair seized control and were never headed again. Webber and Vettel regularly traded positions but it was the defending champion who claimed the honours late on. 
 
Closest to the Red Bulls was Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, the Ferrari ending the afternoon three tenths shy of Vettel’s time. Fourth place was taken by Jenson Button who recorded a time 0.387 adrift of the Red Bull man and Michael Schumacher finished fifth. 
 
There were few problems during the session, with only Sauber’s Sergio Pérez’s hitting trouble. The Mexican driver pulled over halfway through the session with an actuator problem that ended his day’s work.