F1: Button Best In P2 At Barcelona

Formula 1

F1: Button Best In P2 At Barcelona

Jenson Button moves ahead in Friday's second round of practice...

Jared Turner | Posted May 11, 2012 Barcelona (ESP)

Jenson Button began the 2012 Formula One season on top of the mountain.

The McLaren driver has since fallen a bit.

Perhaps Circuit de Catalunya, site of Sunday's Spanish GP, will be just the place where Button begins a new ascent.

Looking as stout as ever in the silver MP4-27 car, Button set the pace in Friday's second 90-minute practice in Barcelona with a lap of 1:23:399.

Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel was next at 1:23:563, followed by Nico Rosberg, Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen.

Romain Grosjean, Mark Webber, Michael Schumacher, Kamui Kobayashi and Nico Hulkenberg filled out the rest of the top 10 as the top 17 cars were separated by only 1.37 seconds.

Fernando Alonso, the surprising pacesetter from Friday's opening practice, slid all the way to 14th in the P2 running order as Ferrari teammate Felipe Massa was three positions better, in 11th.

Narain Karthikeyan completed just two laps in the HRT, which got on track late and retired early with electrical issues.

Several drivers — including Alonso, Webber, Hamilton, Bruno Senna, Daniel Ricciardo and Pastor Maldonado — made brief off-track excursions before continuing on.

Four different drivers have won over the season's first four events, with Button (Australia), Alonso (Malaysia), Rosberg (China) and Vettel (Bahrain) notching one victory apiece.

Reigning World Champion Vettel leads the driver standings, having taken over the top spot with his triumph in Bahrain three weekends ago.

On-track activities resume in Barcelona at 5 a.m. ET Saturday with Free Practice Three streamed live at SPEED.com.

Jared Turner is an Associate Editor for SPEED.com, covering NASCAR and Formula One, and is an Editor for TruckSeries.com. His professional motorsports writing career began in 2005.