UpdateF1 >> Formula 1 News > Practice two: Ferrari dominate

Surprises galore

Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen have set about returning Ferrari to the front of the grid and to the top of the podium by completing a clean sweep of practices at the French Grand Prix.

The early running in the session was set by the McLaren's as they were first out at Magny Cours, but then Massa and Raikkonen jumped to the top of the charts and was never headed.

Vitantonio Liuzzi was the surprise packet of the session early on, jumping to P2 midway through the session on a low fuel run, before finishing in 5th position. The sister Toro Rosso of Scott Speed was also flying on low fuel, even pipping Lewis Hamilton as they finished 3rd and 4th respectively.

For a while in the middle of the session surprises kept springing from everywhere as first David Coulthard put a quick lap past Alonso and Hamilton, and it was quickly followed by the two Williams drivers of Alexander Wurz and Nico Rosberg. Rosberg managed to continue his form and finish in 7th position while Wurz faded to 13th. Coulthard finished in 6th, but sister Red Bull driver Mark Webber suffered some mechanical gremlins and was unable to complete the session, finishing in 16th.

Reigning World Champion Fernando Alonso was unusually swamped and found himself in an uncustomary 8th place and was closely followed home by Super Aguri driver Anthony Davidson.

Ralf Schumacher finished in 10th position as he tried to shake of criticism of his driving after his crash at the US Grand Prix and team mate Jarno Trulli was 14th, while Giancarlo Fisichella was a disappointing 11th for Renault who would also be unhappy at Heikki Kovalainen in 17th position.

BMW also had a rather disappointing second session as Robert Kubica wound up in 12th on his return to F1, while Nick Heidfeld in the sister BMW only managed 18 laps and was not seen in the last half of the session.

Both Honda's of Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello saw an improvement in pace from the last Grand Prix as they finished 15th and 18th respectively, ahead of Takuma Sato in the Super Aguri-Honda. The rear of the field was brought up by Adrian Sutil and Christijan Albers in the Spykers, with Albers having his own problems after just completing 9 laps.

Although some teams will be disappointed at finishing so low on the time sheets, it is not all bad for them as the top 20 cars are separated by just 1.712 seconds, a remarkable effort from all involved and hopefully it will produce a fascinating and exciting qualifying and race package.

Written: Fri, 29 Jun 2007 13:44:35