Formula One - Alonso keeps his lead at Spa Practice 2
The rain washed away all distress and fatigue of the morning, as the racers started to drive again at Spa on Friday afternoon for the second practice session. The second-half of the practice was dry as the twenty-four drivers came out with a new energy and motivation. The session was halted for some minutes before the race started as it was found that spectators are seated in areas that are not very safe for them, however they were soon removed from the dangerous areas.
Adrian Sutil was the man to lead the track all through the practice session but as the session was about to reach its end, Fernando Alonso raced his Ferrari fast enough to leave the Force India driver 0.125s behind. The Spaniard had his lap in just 1m 49.032s while the German followed him with 1m 49.157s.
Lewis Hamilton of McLaren kept chasing Sutil all through the afternoon and was crowned as the third fastest driver for the afternoon making his time of 1m 49.248s, whereas his team mate Jenson Button was only able to end at seventh place with 1m 49.755s.
The fourth place of the practice was taken by Robert Kubica in his F-duct empowered Renault, finishing in 1m 49.282s, chased by the other Ferrari driver, Felipe Massa who ended in 1m 49.588s.
Red Bull, that currently leads both the charts of the season, had one of its drivers, Sebastian Vettel end at sixth place with 1m 49.689s, while the other Red Bull man was still far to be seen.
Pedro de la Rosa lead his BMW Sauber for eighth place in 1m 50.081s, while the other driver of the team, Kamui Kobayashi ended two places behind in the second Sauber making his best in 1m 50.200s. Rubens Barrichello, the Williams driver was sandwiched between the two Sauber men on 1m 50.128s at ninth place.
The Russian driver for Renault, Vitaly Petrov ended at eleventh place on 1m 50.251s.
The seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher and his teammate Nico Rosberg ended together for twelfth and thirteenth places on 1m 50.341s and 1m 50.382s respectively for Mercedes GP team.
Jaime Alguersuari was next to end at fourteenth place being faster than the other Toro Rosso driver with 1m 50.682s, and was chased by Nico Hulkenberg of Williams with 1m 50.831s.
Vitantonio Liuzzi drove his Force India to sixteenth place on 1m 51.520s while Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Buemi caught his tail on 1m 51.523s.
The leader of the Drivers’ Charts so far, Mark Webber of Red Bull completed only 15 laps, with his best in 1m 51.636s ending at 18th place.
The Lotus couple, Heikki Kovalainen and Jarno Trulli finished one behind the other 1m 53.480s and 1m 53.639s at nineteenth and twentieth places respectively.
Lucas di Grassi made the best round for Virgin in 1m 54.325s ending at 21st place, while his teammate, Timo Glock was the last man at the tally for the day with 2:03.179s. The two HRT men, Bruno Senna and Sakon Yamamoto were sandwiched in between with 1m 55.751s and 1m 56.039s respectively.
The Next practice is to be seen Saturday morning followed by the qualifying later in the afternoon.
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