Alonso continues to lead through Belgian FP2

Fernando Alonso topped the second practice session for the Belgian Grand Prix today, as the rapidly drying track allowed some fast laps at the end. He was only one tenth ahead of Adrian Sutil, who in turn was just ahead of Lewis Hamilton.

The session started with the usual Spa conditions, with the track still requiring extreme wet tyres. However, soon enough the sun started to appear, and intermidiates were swiftly attached to the cars. Later on, Jaime Alguersuari was the first to try slick tyres, and his first lap time was 3 seconds faster than his previous ones on the inters.

However, as the track was still slippy, it was sure to catch out a few drivers. Vitantonio Liuzzi spun at Rivage, while Timo Glock crashed after only 3 laps, at the next corner.

Adrian Sutil was leading for most of the session, before a very strange red flag emerged. Charlie Whiting was dispatched in the course car, to ensure that no fans were standing in a dangerous zone. It is believed that a group of kids climbed over a debris barrier at Rivage (Turn 8). This was a disaster for some drivers, as it ruined 10 of the 15 dry minutes of the session that they had.

When the session restarted, all the cars were queued up to take one last set of flying laps. The two Ferraris went out together, but Alonso pulled away from Massa by 0.6 seconds in the middle sector. This allowed Fernando to take the fastest lap of the session, a 1.49.032, to beat Adrian Sutil.

Robert Kubica was 4th, Felipe Massa 5th, and Sebastian Vettel 6th. Rubens Barrichello was again 9th, and Vitantonio Liuzzi struggled again down in 16th. The slowest of the non-new teams was actually Mark Webber, who was 2.6 seconds off the fastest time. The Lotuses were back on form, with Kovalainen and Trulli fastest of the new teams.

Lucas di Grassi was 21st, Senna 22nd, while Sakon Yamamoto was only 0.3 seconds behind his team-mate in 23rd.

Times from FP2:

Pos.		Driver	Car	Best lap	Gap	Laps
1		Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1′49.032		25
2		Adrian Sutil	Force India-Mercedes	1′49.157	0.125	17
3		Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	1′49.248	0.216	14
4		Robert Kubica	Renault	1′49.282	0.250	20
5		Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1′49.588	0.556	23
6		Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull-Renault	1′49.689	0.657	19
7		Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	1′49.755	0.723	20
8		Pedro de la Rosa	Sauber-Ferrari	1′50.081	1.049	27
9		Rubens Barrichello	Williams-Cosworth	1′50.128	1.096	22
10		Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber-Ferrari	1′50.200	1.168	24
11		Vitaly Petrov	Renault	1′50.251	1.219	24
12		Michael Schumacher	Mercedes	1′50.341	1.309	23
13		Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1′50.382	1.350	21
14		Jaime Alguersuari	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1′50.682	1.650	25
15		Nico Hülkenberg	Williams-Cosworth	1′50.831	1.799	20
16		Vitantonio Liuzzi	Force India-Mercedes	1′51.520	2.488	17
17		Sebastien Buemi	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1′51.523	2.491	25
18		Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault	1′51.636	2.604	19
19		Heikki Kovalainen	Lotus-Cosworth	1′53.480	4.448	15
20		Jarno Trulli	Lotus-Cosworth	1′53.639	4.607	21
21		Lucas di Grassi	Virgin-Cosworth	1′54.325	5.293	17
22		Bruno Senna	HRT-Cosworth	1′55.751	6.719	24
23		Sakon Yamamoto	HRT-Cosworth	1′56.039	7.007	21
24		Timo Glock	Virgin-Cosworth	2′03.179	14.147	3