UpdateF1 >> Formula 1 News > Mclaren take round two

Hamilton heads field

With Ferrari taking the spoils in the opening session this morning at Fuji, it seemed only right that Mclaren should redress the balance in the second session.

This they duly did, with Lewis Hamilton the lead man, the Englishman setting a time of 1:18.734 in the first half of the session, and no-one looking like getting near it for the rest of the ninety minutes.

Team mate Fernando Alonso came closest, his 1:18.948 the only other time below the 1:19 mark.

Felipe Mass upheld the honour for Ferrari, albeit half a second slower than Alonso, while Kimi Raikkonen was pipped by the merest fraction by Jarno Trulli, the Toyota driver gunning for glory at his teams own circuit.

Sixth and seventh, within a whisker of each other and just over a second beyond Hamilton, came the Renault duo of Heikki Kovalainen and Giancarlo Fisichella, the French cars assuming the mantle of best of the rest usually attributed to BMW, who could only manage 10th and 15th today for Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld respectively.

David Coulthard put in a last minute flyer for Red Bull to eclipse the second Toyota of Ralf Schumacher, and Mark Webber brought the second of the Red Bull runners home in 11th, a vast improvement on this mornings efforts.

The two Williams came next, Alex Wurz ahead of Nico Rosberg for once, with Jenson Button the fastest of the revised, but hardly improved, Honda RA107 runners. Team mate Rubens Barrichello continues to have a torrid time, ending the day in 17th.

16th place, behind Heidfelds BMW, went to the increasingly impressive Adrian Sutil in the much improved Spyker, although the feeling persists that the German and the little team will be disappointed as their may have been more available.

Toro Rosso continues to squander a decent engine, Super Aguri look to be unusually hindered, and Sakon Yamamoto improved as the session went on.

Written: Fri, 28 Sep 2007 06:47:25