| Re: The Malaysian GP
Practice 2: Massa still in control
Felipe Massa completed his domination of Friday practice in Malaysia, setting the pace in the afternoon’s 90-minute session just as he had in the morning.
The surprise was the pace of the two Renault drivers, who vaulted up the timing charts in the dying moments to finish second and third fastest.
Giancarlo Fisichella edged out rookie team-mate Heikki Kovalainen by 0.2s, leaving the second Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen in fourth place, 0.4s adrift of the flying Massa.
Nico Rosberg was fifth fastest, as he had been in the morning, with team-mate Alex Wurz – who had sat out the morning session while the team ran test driver Kazuki Nakajima – right behind him in sixth.
The McLarens set the initial pace but thereafter kept a low profile and wound up only ninth (Lewis Hamilton) and 12th (Fernando Alonso).
BMW Sauber’s Robert Kubica set the first real benchmark time, a 1m36.717s, before the Ferrari duo got into their stride and took control of the proceedings.
Half an hour into the session, Raikkonen clocked a 1m36.669s, and a few minutes later Massa put that in perspective with an impressive 1m35.780s, which remained unbeaten for the rest of the afternoon.
Raikkonen later improved to 1m36.160s but, as in Melbourne, appears to be playing catch-up to his Brazilian team-mate after the first day.
Kubica was shuffled back to seventh behind the two Williams cars, three places ahead of team-mate Nick Heidfeld on a slightly low-key opening day for BMW.
Ralf Schumacher was eighth fastest for Toyota and the last man within a second of Massa’s time.
McLaren’s lack of pace was surprising but the Woking squad is doubtless playing its usual long game and it would be no surprise to see the silver cars return to the sharp end in qualifying.
Mark Webber set the 11th best time but stopped on track in the middle sector with around five minutes of the session remaining.
That was shortly after a red flag interruption triggered by a spectacular right-rear tyre blow-out that befell Christijan Albers as he braked for the first corner.
Super Aguri again won bragging rights in the Honda camp by outpacing the works cars, with Takuma Sato 14th and Anthony Davidson 18th while Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello languished in 15th and 21st respectively.
Friday free practice session 2 times from Sepang
1. MASSA Ferrari 1m35.780s
2. FISICHELLA Renault 1m35.910s
3. KOVALAINEN Renault 1m36.106s
4. RAIKKONEN Ferrari 1m36.160s
5. ROSBERG Williams 1m36.523s
6. WURZ Williams 1m36.621s
7. KUBICA BMW 1m36.717s
8. SCHUMACHER Toyota 1m36.760s
9. HAMILTON McLaren 1m36.797s
10. HEIDFELD BMW 1m36.862s
11. WEBBER Red Bull 1m36.906s
12. ALONSO McLaren 1m37.041s
13. COULTHARD Red Bull 1m37.203s
14. SATO Super Aguri 1m37.282s
15. BUTTON Honda 1m37.578s
16. TRULLI Toyota 1m37.712s
17. LIUZZI Toro Rosso 1m37.855s
18. DAVIDSON Super Aguri 1m38.334s
19. SUTIL Spyker 1m38.419s
20. SPEED Toro Rosso 1m38.650s
21. BARRICHELLO Honda 1m38.713s
22. ALBERS Spyker 1m39.807s |