The second practice session of the Indian Grand Prix has started with Sebastian Vettel on top with the medium tyre, but his team mate has beaten his time by less than a tenth of a second and then Nico Rosberg has improved the time of the Australian by a thousandth of a second, but the German has complained about understeer. After the first half an hour, everybody has started to test the soft compound. Sebastian Vettel has pushed hard on his lap, using all the track width he has set the best time of the day, half a second worse than his pole time last year.
On the second half of the session, teams have done some “long” runs, and tyres (mainly the soft compound) have been the main character, a lot of blistering and, on words of Vettel “they are only lasting for 4 or 5 laps”. Pastor Maldonado has had an issue with his front right tyre, it seems that something went wrong in a pit stop, the nut has fallen and the tyre eventually has punctured. Team Lotus has been the team with a longest run on the soft tyre, so they could have a certain advantage on Sunday. With the medium compound, Red Bull has not had any rival in long runs.
| P | Driver | Team | Time | Dif. | Laps |
| 1 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull | 1:25.722 | 35 | |
| 2 | Mark Webber | Red Bull | 1:26.011 | 0.289 | 38 |
| 3 | Romain Grosjean | Lotus | 1:26.220 | 0.498 | 36 |
| 4 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 1:26.399 | 0.677 | 36 |
| 5 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | 1:26.430 | 0.708 | 39 |
| 6 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 1:26.582 | 0.860 | 40 |
| 7 | Felipe Massa | Ferrari | 1:26.601 | 0.879 | 41 |
| 8 | Kimi Räikkönen | Lotus | 1:26.632 | 0.910 | 32 |
| 9 | Sergio Pérez | McLaren | 1:26.857 | 1.135 | 40 |
| 10 | Jenson Button | McLaren | 1:26.972 | 1.250 | 39 |
| 11 | Daniel Ricciardo | STR | 1:27.304 | 1.582 | 17 |
| 12 | Adrian Sutil | Force India | 1:27.375 | 1.653 | 36 |
| 13 | Valtteri Bottas | Williams | 1:27.429 | 1.707 | 31 |
| 14 | Nico Hulkenberg | Sauber | 1:27.491 | 1.769 | 40 |
| 15 | Paul di Resta | Force India | 1:27.608 | 1.886 | 38 |
| 16 | Pastor Maldonado | Williams | 1:27.720 | 1.998 | 23 |
| 17 | Esteban Gutiérrez | Sauber | 1:27.949 | 2.227 | 34 |
| 18 | Jean Eric Vergne | STR | 1:28.431 | 2.709 | 30 |
| 19 | Giedo van der Garde | Caterham | 1:28.692 | 2.970 | 39 |
| 20 | Jules Bianchi | Marussia | 1:28.799 | 3.077 | 32 |
| 21 | Charles Pic | Caterham | 1:29.366 | 3.644 | 37 |
| 22 | Max Chilton | Marussia | 1:30.164 | 4.442 | 27 |
