Webber on top on Friday

Red Bull's Mark Webber was the man on form on Friday topping the timing sessions for both practice sessions.

The first practice session had both Red Bull drivers at the top with Webber's best time of 1minute 25.142seconds over a second faster than anyone else in yesterday mornings session.

Nico Rosberg for Mercedes, Fernando Alonso for Ferrari and Sergio Perez for Sauber completed the top five.

Lewis Hamilton was 1.846 seconds slower than Webber in sixth, while Jenson Button was a further tenth behind in ninth.

It was a pretty uneventful practice session, with the only incident to report being Pastor Maldonado running wide at turn 12 before beaching himself in the gravel.

The second practice session was intriguing while unspectacular.

Many F1 supporters would have been fearing the worst when Red Bull were 2 seconds clear during the earlier part of the session.

Red Bull had opted to run on the softer rubber and while Renault did the same, Webber and Vettel appeared untouchable.

But when McLaren switched to the soft compound the two second gap evaporated with Lewis Hamilton getting within 0.039 seconds of Webber's fastest time of 1minute 22.470s.

Vettel was third fastest 0.356 behind, with Jenson Button fourth 0.718 seconds down.

Ferrari's Fernando Alonso completed the top five a second slower than Webber.

There was also some action towards the back of the grid with Heikki Kovalainen boosted by Lotus' upgrade package beating Adrian Sutil's Force India.

With the soft tyres appearing to be two seconds a lap quicker than the new harder compound, expect some drama in qualifying this afternoon, as teams and drivers weigh up grid position against having an extra set of tyres for the race.