Kimi Raikkonen ends up fastest but a resurgent Renault team pushes him hard.
The story of second practice was the excellent performance of the Renault team. While Kimi Raikkonen set the fastest time as expected Nelson Piquet Jr and Fernando Alonso were not far behind. Piquet Jr ended the session second quickest with Alonso just behind. In a far closer session the top 12 drivers were covered by less than a second.
Kazuki Nakajima also had a fruitful session, ending up fourth fastest. His team-mate Nico Rosberg was also well inside the top ten in seventh place. Felipe Massa had to settle for fifth in his Ferrari while Mark Webber improved from the first session of the day to finish sixth. Confirming the potential of the Red Bull was team-mate David Coulthard in eighth position.
Neither McLaren nor BMW Sauber seemed interested in setting flying laps, perhaps preferring to concentrate on race set-up. Lewis Hamilton wound up fastest of the McLarens in 11th, five places ahead of team-mate Heikki Kovaleinen, who suffered reliability problems. Just behind Hamilton was the BMW Sauber of Robert Kubica, closely followed by the sister car of Nick Heidfeld.
Another impressive performance was provided by Force India who managed to get both cars into the top ten fastest times, Giancarlo Fisichella in ninth and Adrian Sutil in tenth.
As in the first session the Toyota’s looked strangely off the pace. Jarno Trulli could only manage 14th position while Timo Glock could do no better than 20th.It could be a long weekend for both of them. Despite a promising start to the year their car does not look suited to the Barcelona track.
Like their Japanese counterparts Honda also struggled for pace, with Jenson Button 15th and Rubens Barrichello 17th. Just behind them came Toro Rosso with Sebastian Vettel ahead of Sebastien Bourdais. They will be desperate to get their hands on the new car when it is finally ready to race.
At the back Takuma Sato and Anthony Davidson were some way adrift of the others but, with the troubled Super Aguri team only completing limited running, it is little more than can be expected.
Renault and Williams will be highly encouraged by today’s times but qualifying tomorrow will reveal if they have genuine pace to compete with the front-runners. Meanwhile McLaren and BMW Sauber will be hoping that qualifying sees them return to the sharp end of the timesheets. They will be hoping that Ferrari haven't been sand-bagging but the results of the first practice session suggest that the team from Maranello are in excellent form for the race ahead.
