McLaren driver Jenson Button was fastest in a rain-interrupted second practice session for the Monaco Grand Prix on Thursday, with Russia’s Vitaly Petrov 16th.
Button’s time was 1 minute 15.746, more than half a second faster than Fernando Alonso’s chart-topping time from the morning session.
Romain Grosjean of Lotus was second in both sessions, although he improved his time by almost half a second to 1 minute 16.138 seconds, 0.468 seconds faster than Alonso’s Ferrari teammate Felipe Massa in third.
The damp track caused problems for many, as both Williams drivers, Sauber’s Sergio Perez and Petrov’s teammate Heikki Kovalainen were forced to resort to the escape road at the Mirabeau corner to avoid a crash.
McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton, fourth in the morning, was one of several famous names to run slowly in the second session as he was 11th fastest, one place behind reigning champion Sebastian Vettel.
Lotus driver Kimi Raikkonen suffered a second difficult session, coming 19th after he failed to make any running in the morning because of problems with the car.
Petrov beat his morning time by 0.9 seconds to finish 16th with a time of 1 minute 18.440 seconds, five places and 1.8 seconds ahead of Kovalainen and faster than both Toro Rosso cars.
Practice in Monaco is carried out on Thursday in order to open the track, made of public roads, to local residents to use Friday.
