Alonso tops Monaco Friday Practice 2

Fernando Alonso led both Friday Practice sessions in Monaco today

Fernando Alonso made it two in a row today, by topping the second practice session of the Monaco Grand Prix weekend, as he did the first. This time, however, he was challenged much more by the other drivers.

This session proved to be much more difficult than the first, thanks to slightly damper conditions, as well as traffic on several occasions. Both Felipe Massa and Timo Glock ran wide at Snt Devote corner, for example. Michael Schumacher was repeatedly caught out by the new kerbs at the Turn 11 chicane.

Traffic proved to be a problem again, but not as you would expect. Felipe Massa went too slowly at the last corner, in preparation for the next lap, and Heikki Kovalainen squeezed through. This sort of situation may well prove to be a problem in qualifying, especially in Q1. For Massa’s next lap after this minor scare, he was holding up Timo Glock.

Then, light rain began to fall. It wasn’t hard enough to necessitate intermidiate tyres, but enough for the cars to have trouble. Lewis Hamilton had a moment at the Anthony Combes corner, but just about kept it together. Jaime Alguersuari nearly lost control at the Turn 11 chicane, like Kimi Raikkonen did in 2008, but very skilfully kept it out of the barriers.

Again, Alonso topped the session, but the other drivers were much closer than last time. Nico Rosberg was 2nd, and only one tenth back, and Sebastian Vettel was a further 9 hundreths behind. Felipe Massa was 2 hundreths slower than Vettel, and Michael Schumacher 2 hundreths again back from Massa. Then there was a gap of 5 hundreths of a second to Robert Kubica in 6th.

It was another relatively poor session for McLaren. Lewis Hamilton as 7th, after several near misses today. Jenson Button was 9th, but 4 tenths slower than Lewis. Mark Webber was another driver who was dissapointing, as he was 10th overall, and half a second slower than his team-mate.

The two Williams cars were 13th and 14th, with Hulkenberg leading Barrichello by two tenths of a second. Adrian Sutil again did much better than his team-mate Liuzzi, as Sutil was 8th, and 1.1 seconds quicker than Liuzzi in 15th.

The Lotus of Heikki Kovalainen was the fastest of the new teams. Lucas di Grassi split in between him and Jarno Trulli to get 20th. Timo Glock was 22nd, ahead of the two HRTs. It was a complete waste of a session for Bruno Senna, as his car is in need of the repair, and the team will have to wait until the parts are sent to them by Dallara. It is understood that it is a chassis problem, like Senna was saying last week. He therefore was the slowest of the grid this session.

Times from Monaco Friday Practice 2:

	Driver	Team	Fastest lap	Gap	# of Laps
1	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1.14.904		36
2	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes GP	1.15.013	0.109	40
3	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull-Renault	1.15.099	0.195	48
4	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1.15.120	0.216	45
5	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes GP	1.15.143	0.239	38
6	Robert Kubica	Renault	1.15.192	0.288	39
7	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	1.15.249	0.345	32
8	Adrian Sutil	Force India-Mercedes	1.15.460	0.556	42
9	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	1.15.619	0.715	38
10	Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault	1.15.620	0.716	28
11	Vitaly Petrov	Renault	1.15.746	0.842	44
12	Sebastien Buemi	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1.16.276	1.372	46
13	Nico Hulkenberg	Williams-Cosworth	1.16.348	1.444	48
14	Rubens Barrichello	Williams-Cosworth	1.16.522	1.618	38
15	Vitantonio Liuzzi	Force India-Mercedes	1.16.528	1.624	42
16	Pedro de la Rosa	Sauber-Ferrari	1.16.599	1.695	36
17	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber-Ferrari	1.16.818	1.914	46
18	Jaime Alguersuari	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1.17.023	2.119	28
19	Heikki Kovalainen	Lotus-Cosworth	1.18.184	3.28	48
20	Lucas di Grassi	Virgin-Cosworth	1.18.478	3.574	38
21	Jarno Trulli	Lotus-Cosworth	1.18.667	3.763	13
22	Timo Glock	Virgin-Cosworth	1.18.721	3.817	42
23	Karun Chandhok	HRT-Cosworth	1.20.313	5.409	36
24	Bruno Senna	HRT-Cosworth	1.22.148	7.244	11

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