McLaren one-two in FP2

McLaren dominated as the second 90 minutes of running provided no more dry running than the first had.

Hamilton and Button were split by 0.104 seconds, but the pair were 1.7s quicker than the rest of the field - headed by new double world champion Sebastian Vettel.

The second session exploded into life as soon as the pitlane opened with all the vivacity the first practice had lacked. None of the teams had achieved any worthwhile running in the first one, and even with the track still wet, the priority seemed to be to put the laps on the board.

Very quickly the Red Bull pair established themselves at the top of the times, with Vettel leading Mark Webber. But that only lasted as long as it took for the McLarens to get out of the garages and up to speed. Then Button and Hamilton began trading times over first position.

By the time they'd settled the initial argument, half an hour of the session had gone by, and Hamilton was top with a 1:50.828, Button 0.5s behind - the track still wet enough for inters with the rain sporadic. The silver cars were two seconds faster than their Red Bull rivals.

Button returned to the track with 35 minutes gone and began setting fastest split times, improving to within 0.104s but staying second before returning to the pits, his set of inters finally shot.

Things stayed the same for a while until Fernando Alonso fired in a lap good enough to put him third fastest with 40 minutes to go – still the Ferrari driver was 1.9s behind the two McLarens, which seemed the car most happy in the intermediate conditions.

The Red Bulls returned to the track at the turn of final half hour and Vettel immediately re-established himself in third, but only just – the world champion still 1.8s off Hamilton's time. It was about this time that the most curious incident of the day occurred when Nico Rosberg collected Jaime Alguersuari's Toro Rosso as the Spaniard exited the pits.

The Mercedes driver ran wide on the exit of the very tight left-hander that is turn one and simply skated into the Toro Rosso, damaging both cars. Not long after Alguersuari was on the radio complaining about the dangers of exiting the pits in Korea.

They were not the only ones going off though: Hamilton, Alonso, Rubens Barrichello, Bruno Senna and several others all had similar moments.

Into the final 10 minutes and still the track was not entirely dry. Sebastien Buemi tried the super soft tyres, but a spin on his out lap gave Toro Rosso its answer as to the adhesion levels on the track.

Webber too went on to the softer slicks and fared better – in that he did not spin – but there was no way that the Red Bull would change the order.

At the chequered flag the McLarens headed Vettel, Alonso and Webber with Alguersuari remaining an impressive sixth. Felipe Massa ended up seventh ahead of Rosberg, with Buemi and Paul di Resta completing the top 10.