Massa fastest in second practice

Ferrari's Felipe Massa headed Lotus's Kimi Raikkonen in second practice at the Chinese Grand Prix. The Brazilian was more than 0.4 seconds quicker than team-mate Fernando Alonso in third place, with Mercedes' Nico Rosberg fourth fastest. Red Bull's Mark Webber was fifth ahead of McLaren's Jenson Button and the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton. The Force Indias of Adrian Sutil and Paul di Resta were eighth and ninth, from Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel. Mercedes had dominatethe first practice session and were first and second, with Rosberg narrowly ahead of Hamilton after the first runs in second practice, too. But in the middle of the session, when the teams are preparing for qualifying, Massa produced an impressive lap of one minute 35.340 seconds to set the pace. $render("advert","advert-companion","22119370"); $render("advert-post-script-load"); Webber hints at Red Bull tensions require( { baseUrl: "http://static.bbci.co.uk/sport/ui/3.0.7/js/desktop/" }, ["empswitch"], function(empswitch) { empswitch.init(); } ); Raikkonen was just 0.152secs adrift, with Alonso 0.415secs behind his team-mate. The two Ferraris were running in different specifications as the team evaluated a series of upgrades aimed at closing the gap to the pace-setting Red Bull, Mercedes and Lotus cars. The Ferrari has been on balance the fourth quickest car so far this season. Massa this weekend has the chance to become the first team-mate of Alonso ever to out-qualify the double world champion five times in succession, counting the end of last season and the beginning of this. "I was not really happy with the medium tyres, we were not so quick," Massa said. "But it was amazing to see how much we improved with the soft tyres, I didn't expect that and when I did the race simulation the pace was very good, very competitive. "[I'm] confident for the weekend. I think we can do everything we did today on tomorrow and Sunday as well." Rosberg ended the session just less than 0.5secs slower than Massa, although he set his time considerably earlier in the session when the track would have been in less good condition. "Mine and Nico's pace was quite competitive today," said Hamilton. "I think we are there or thereabouts." When asked if victory on Sunday was a possibility he added: "Not just yet; we're working on it. The car definitely doesn't feel bad. For me, I'm still finding myself a little bit uncomfortable in the car. "We just made a change going into this session on the brakes and it made a massive difference, a positive step, so I'm hoping to make some more steps like that just to make me more comfortable in the car." Webber was 0.752secs off the pace and Vettel 1.451secs adrift and complaining of problems with vibration and locking brakes. Red Bull took the unusual step of shaving the top off the barge boards - the aerodynamically shaped pieces of bodywork behind the front tyres - during the session.