F1 - Friday Practice Two: Ferrari still on top, McLaren suffer

Raikkonen once again led practice, this time 1.3s slower that in the morning heavier fuel

World championship leader Kimi Raikkonen completed a perfect opening day’s work at Barcelona by setting the pace once again in Friday afternoon practice.

This time his nearest challenger was not team-mate Felipe Massa, but Renault’s rookie Nelson Piquet Jr.

The young Brazilian, who has steadily been rebuilding his confidence after a disastrous F1 debut in Australia, finished just 0.084s adrift of Raikkonen.

Crowd favourite Fernando Alonso was third fastest in the sister R28, so the upgrades Renault have brought to Spain appear to be bearing fruit already.

McLaren had an unhappy session, Lewis Hamilton finishing an anonymous 11th and Heikki Kovalainen a lowly 16th after mechanical problems.


Lewis had a miserable session, and could only manage 11th

Given their familiarity with the Catalunya circuit, the top teams spent most of the afternoon running with race fuel and did not simulate qualifying runs.

Thus, Raikkonen’s best time was some 1.3s slower than his morning benchmark and for much of the session the timing charts had an unfamiliar look.

The ever-improving Force India team grasped the rare opportunity to enjoy the limelight, with first Adrian Sutil and then Giancarlo Fisichella going fastest of all.

It wasn’t until 40 minutes into the session that Fisichella was demoted (by Red Bull’s David Coulthard), and even after the late shake-up of the order he and Sutil finished ninth and 10th.

Williams ran 1-2 in the middle part of the session, with Nico Rosberg shading Coulthard’s time only to be usurped almost immediately by team-mate Kazuki Nakajima.

The Japanese driver’s time remained good enough for fourth place, 0.1s and three places ahead of Rosberg.

Splitting the Williams duo were Felipe Massa, who has generally looked less comfortable so far than Ferrari team-mate Raikkonen, and Red Bull’s Mark Webber.

Coulthard was shuffled back to eighth ahead of the Force India pair, Hamilton and the two BMWs, who rarely show their hand on Fridays.

Hamilton spent much of the session on the fringes of the top 10, apparently unable to make a big impression.

He spun under braking for turn 10 early on and stopped in the pit entry road on his final lap of the afternoon.

Team-mate Kovalainen fared much worse, completing only eight laps.

A gearbox problem consigned him to the garage for the first half of the session and then he rolled to a halt at the exit of turn five just past the one-hour mark.

Spanish GP free practice session 2 times:
1. RAIKKONEN Ferrari 1m21.935s
2. PIQUET Renault 1m22.019s
3. ALONSO Renault 1m22.032s
4. NAKAJIMA Williams 1m22.172s
5. MASSA Ferrari 1m22.229s
6. WEBBER Red Bull 1m22.238s
7. ROSBERG Williams 1m22.266s
8. COULTHARD Red Bull 1m22.289s
9. FISICHELLA Force India 1m22.383s
10. SUTIL Force India 1m22.548s
11. HAMILTON McLaren 1m22.685s
12. KUBICA BMW 1m22.788s
13. HEIDFELD BMW 1m23.130s
14. TRULLI Toyota 1m23.224s
15. BUTTON Honda 1m23.263s
16. KOVALAINEN McLaren 1m23.264s
17. BARRICHELLO Honda 1m23.415s
18. VETTEL Toro Rosso 1m23.661s
19. BOURDAIS Toro Rosso 1m23.684s
20. GLOCK Toyota 1m23.883s
21. SATO Super Aguri 1m25.110s
22. DAVIDSON Super Aguri 1m25.163s

ITV Sport