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Renault in the battle

Second practice under the Singapore floodlights provided the usual Ferrari-McLaren battle, even if there was only one true contender from the Italian side, as Felipe Massa, Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen all took turns at taking the top spot.

With the session about to finish and no runs left, the three were together – Hamilton ahead of Massa and Kovalainen – with just four one hundredths of a second covering the trio, and along came Fernando Alonso.

The Renault had looked reasonable all session – sort of front end of the middle pack – but Fernando reminded us all what a class act he is with a lap that, while very good in the first two sectors of the circuit, was simple devastating in the final part of the lap.

A 1:45.654 was the result, a tenth quicker than Hamilton and a surprise that nobody had expected.

Behind the top four came Nico Rosberg and Robert Kubica, the Williams going well here and finishing half a second down on Alonso, while Kubica and the BMW looked to be off the ultimate pace today, although its notable that neither he nor Nick Heidfeld – a desperate 16th at the close of play – appeared to be going for any sort of single lap pace, both staying on track for very long strings of laps.

While it was no surprise to see Massa and Hamilton up front, somehow it was no surprise, either, to find Kimi Raikkonen in seventh place, almost one second of the pace of his teammate. There is simply something not quite right with Kimi at the moment, and it would appear he cannot put a finger on it either.

Jenson Button has looked good all day here, dragging the Honda to a fine eighth fastest while his team mate Rubens Barrichello languishes in 18th, and Kazuki Nakajima confirmed Williams’ promise with ninth place, ahead of an increasingly impressive Timo Glock in the Toyota.

In fact, here was another great teammate discrepancy for Jarno Trulli, no slouch he, could only manage a distant 19th, a full second slower than the young German in the other red and white car.

Worthy of mention is Mark Webber, the Australian finally getting out on track with under thirty minutes of the session left, having given the mechanics work to do after the first session. Undeterred, he set out on a series of fact finding laps, changed tyres, and immediately lapped in the lower end of the top ten, only being demoted to 11th in the final seconds. That says a lot about the man and his attitude, never mind his talent.

You may have noticed a name missing – who was it that won in Monza just two weeks ago? Sebastian Vettel and Toro Rosso, who came home 13th, one and a half seconds off the pace and one place ahead of team mate Sebastien Bourdais. Fairytales, as we know, do not last forever.

David Coulthard carries on the road to retirement with a 15thposition, and the Force India pair again did the tiny team proud with Giancarlo Fisichella and Adrian Sutil an in touch 17th an 20th.

In truth, then, we are no further forward in knowing how this race will go, and without the forecast rain, we have no way of knowing what will happen if qualifying features a downpour such as the one that took place here this morning.

It would be good, however, if Fernando and the Renault could put up a real fight, rather than just a headline grabbing practice time.

Written: Fri, 26 Sep 2008 15:26:22