Spain 2008: Friday Afternoon Practice

The second session of the Spanish Grand Prix practices finalised earlier, and Kimi Raikkonen continued to dominate in his Ferrari F2008. However, there were a few surprises along the way and the Friday tables look a little odd. Second place went to a resurgent Nelson Piquet Jr, setting a lap time on 0.1s adrift of Raikkonen. Compounding the pace of the Renault R27 was team mate Fernando Alonso in third going only a fraction slower. Kazuki Nakajima also managed to get his Williams into the mix and went fourth, his team mate Nico Rosberg going seventh and sandwiching Felipe Massa and Mark Webber in fifth and sixth respectively.

David Coulthard managed to climb into eighth place and led the two Force Indias into very respectable positions. McLaren and BMW disappointed today but as with previous sessions their final times shuld be taken with a rather large grain of salt. Lewis Hamilton went eleventh, followed by Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld. Heikki Kovalainen could only get as high as sixteenth. Both Super Aguris went slower in the afternoon session than they did in the morning.

One possible explanation for the slightly skewed times are the strategies the teams were employing, apparently some running with much higher fuel loads than others. Although Hamilton was clearly not enjoying his post-lunch run, having spun at T10 and then coming to a halt in the pit entry after his final run of the day. Kovalainen was also having a nightmare afternoon, his MP4-23 suffering with a gearbox problem. The Finn only managed eight laps.

Spain Friday Practice Two

Image courtesy of VRoig.