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McLaren blitzes Ferrari

After the rain this morning, Hockenheim was overcast and dry for the second practice session, and somewhat warmer than in the morning, too.

A lot of cars seemed to want to run early, and it was not long before Felipe Massa asserted his position at the top of the time sheets – as he often does – and stayed there for along time.

Not long enough, however, for with seconds of the session left Lewis Hamilton blasted his McLaren across the line to record a devastating 1:15.025, some seven tenths of a second quicker than the Brazilian who, by now, was back in the pits and finished for the day.

Behind Massa, trailing by a few hundredths, came Kimi Raikkonen, the world champion again not looking as assured in the car as his team mate, and a couple of tenths further back than him his countryman Heikki Kovalainen secured fourth place, and will no doubt be bewildered at the pace of his team mate who was almost a second up the road.

Fifth, the last man within a second of Hamilton and just shy of Kovalainen, came Mark Webber, the Australian again wringing the neck of the RB4 and extracting every ounce of available pace, with in sixth the Renault of Fernando Alonso, once more out-paced by a Red Bull using the same engine.

Nico Rosberg for Williams, Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld for BMW, then Sebastian Vettel in the STR and David Coulthard in the second Red Bull followed, these five covered by much less than a tenth of a second, and one got the distinct impression the BMW pair were not giving it everything they had as they both completed a trio of long stints.

Further back, and Toyota failed to show their usual promise – not unusual for a Friday – Honda improved to the top of the lower third, Kazuki Nakajima had a shortened session thanks to a fault with his Williams, and Sebastien Bourdais again looked distinctly out of sorts compared to his namesake and team mate Vettel. Nelson Piquet came home fifteenth and unnoticed for Renault, and the Force India duo of Adrian Sutil and Giancarlo Fisichella brought up the rear, two seconds off first place but a promising one-second off sixth.

Written: Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:47:52