Lewis Hamilton showed McLaren could remain a factor at the front of the field in the Belgian Grand Prix after all by topping a fully dry afternoon practice session at Spa.
Having played down its chances of repeating its front-running form from the last two races at this more downforce-dependent circuit, McLaren ended Friday narrowly ahead on pace after Hamilton uncorked an aggressive late lap of 1m47.201s.
The world champion’s time was an inconsequential 0.016s faster than Timo Glock’s best effort, as Toyota showed Jarno Trulli’s quickest time in the rain-hit morning session wasn’t totally unrepresentative of the TF109's potential by claiming strong second and seventh places.
Spa master Kimi Raikkonen completed a ridiculously close head of the field by moving up to third late on, just 0.084s adrift of Hamilton.
However, the Finn ended the session parked on the side of the track after his Ferrari F60 ground to a halt in the closing seconds.
Championship hopeful Mark Webber had led the session for much of the hour but had to settle for fourth – albeit just 0.128s off the pace for Red Bull.
Renault rookie Romain Grosjean continued his impressive Formula 1 start by netting fifth, with Force India’s Giancarlo Fisichella vaulting up the order late on to finish the day in sixth.
Just days after reigniting its season with victory in Valencia, championship leader Brawn showed little speed in the session and finished in potentially concerning 17th and 18th positions on the times.
With the entire afternoon session playing out in dry conditions, the top 18 on the times were amazingly separated by just 0.929s - an incredibly tight margin given the undulating circuit stretches to 4.35 miles in length.
A full report will follow…
Belgian Grand Prix free practice session two
1. HAMILTON McLaren 1m47.201s
2. GLOCK Toyota 1m47.217s
3. RAIKKONEN Ferrari 1m47.285s
4. WEBBER Red Bull 1m47.329s
5. GROSJEAN Renault 1m47.333s
6. FISICHELLA Force India 1m47.506s
7. TRULLI Toyota 1m47.559s
8. KUBICA BMW 1m47.578s
9. ALGUERSUARI Toro Rosso 1m47.579s
10. VETTEL Red Bull 1m47.602s
11. BUEMI Toro Rosso 1m47.702s
12. KOVALAINEN McLaren 1m47.743s
13. SUTIL Force India 1m47.790s
14. ALONSO Renault 1m47.862s
15. NAKAJIMA Williams 1m47.961s
16. HEIDFELD BMW 1m48.017s
17. BUTTON Brawn 1m48.125s
18. BARRICHELLO Brawn 1m48.130s
19. ROSBERG Williams 1m48.360s
20. BADOER Ferrari 1m49.211s
Friday, 28 August 2009
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