By PABLO GORONDI
Associated Press Writer
BUDAPEST, Hungary(AP) -- Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel posted the
best times during both 90-minute practice sessions for the
Hungarian Grand Prix on Friday.
Vettel outpaced teammate Mark Webber in the morning session,
then topped Ferrari's Fernando Alonso by 0.49 seconds in the
afternoon.
Red Bull and Ferrari alternated the other top places in the
afternoon, with Webber third ahead of Ferrari's Felipe Massa -
back at the scene where he suffered near-fatal skull fractures
in a qualifying crash last year.
"It was just normal to go back on the track," Massa said. "It
was nice to be back after what happened last year, but I didn't
think about it when I was in the car."
Alonso said Saturday's sessions - a third practice and
qualifying - would show more clearly the teams' strengths and
weaknesses than these initial laps around the Hungaroring's
twisting and relatively slow design.
"It's only Friday," the Spaniard said in the Ferrari paddock.
"All the teams have tried different things and we don't really
know how much faster the others may be than us."
Alonso said Ferrari's main objective in Sunday's race was to
finish ahead of McLaren, which leads the team and the drivers'
championships.
"First of all we'll try to reduce the difference with McLaren
and then see if in a few races we can cut the gap to less than
25 points, a one-race difference," Alonso said.
Among the teams, McLaren has 300 points, Red Bull is second with
272, and Ferrari third with 208.
Lewis Hamilton is the top driver with 157 points after 11 races.
Teammate Jenson Button, the defending champion, is second with
143 points. Red Bull drivers Vettel and Webber each have 136
points and Alonso, the only other contender in triple digits,
has 123.
In other afternoon placings, Renault's Vitaly Petrov of Russia
beat Hamilton for fifth, while the other Renault of Robert
Kubica was seventh. Button was ninth.