Hello and welcome back to our continued coverage of this weekend's Australian Grand Prix. Next up is the second Friday practice session at Albert Park.

Thanks for joining us today. We'll be back with more on Saturday when the final practice session gets under way. Until then...

That's it for this session! Schumacher lays down the marker right at the death and in doing so perhaps he has silenced a few critics. Let's see what he can do for the rest of the weekend...

Schumacher goes top with a 1:29.183 on his final flying lap!

That's it for this session! The cars will finish off their laps...

Kobayashi spins coming into the home straight! He makes a miraculous save though and there's no damage done!

Still Hulkenburg tops the standings with just two minutes to go. This busy late segment of the session will provide plenty of date for the teams to work on overnight.

The activity on track could be due to a rather large and dark cloud approaching Albert Park. Maybe the teams are expecting rain.

Hulkenberg deposes Schumacher from the top though, not Vettel. The track is 99 per cent dry now.

Schumacher goes top with a 1:30.643 but here comes Vettel, looking to lay down a marker this weekend.

Di Resta is the latest man to top the timesheets , ahead of Massa and Kovalainen now.

It's a busy track all of a sudden as the action hots up near the end of this session.

Vettel, on a soft tyre, posts the fastest lap of the day - a 1:36.975. He's soon usurped by Grosjean though with a 1:36.190. These times are going to fall thick and fast now. Then Webber and Glock post quick times to split Grosjean and Vettel.

Hamilton is getting ready to come out. We should be seeing the McLaren man soon enough.

So, Perez leads from Schumacher, Maldonado, Vettel, Button, Ricciardo, Vergne, Webber, Rosberg and Hulkenberg. We can expect a late flurry of activity in the final 20 minutes of this session now.

Caterham on Twitter: "The new spec front wing is going back on Heikki's car for the next. Let's see if we can get a lap or two with it in the dry."

There's a lull out there at the moment, with half an hour to go in this second session.

Lotus drivers Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean are still to appear on track in this session. Nor have we seen Lewis Hamilton yet, other than when he was hobnobbing with Lenny Kravitz earlier.

Schumacher wastes no time in bettering Maldonado on his first flying lap! Great stuff from the former world champion! Less good from Webber, who slips off onto the soggy grass before ploughing through it and emerging the other side with clumps of turf attached to the bottom of his car!

Maldonado improves his best time to 1:37.721.

Vettel is out on track, as is the sun. The reigning champion is still on wet weather tyres but he'll have to change them soon if the track continues to dry out.