Once again Kimi Raikkonen topped the table at the second practise session of the day. Unlike the morning though, it wasn’t his team mate biting at his heals this time; it was young Nelson Piquet Jr in the Renault. Home favourite Fernando Alonso was the third fastest in the sister R28. It would seem the upgrades are giving a Renault a step in the right direction. 

The two McLarens had rather a poor time of it with Lewis Hamilton only managing eleventh and his team mate was far behind him in sixteenth. The top teams did spend most of the afternoon running with race fuel and did not simulate qualifying runs as they are all very familiar with the Catalunya circuit.

This would explain why Raikkonen’s best time was 1.3s slower than this morning and why the timing charts look somewhat unfamiliar. Hence for some of the session Adrian Sutil, in the Force India topped the time sheets only to be replaced by the other Force India of Giancarlo Fisichella.

He stayed there for forty minutes until David Coulthard beat his time in the Red Bull, but they still managed to complete the session in ninth and tenth. Rosberg went on to take the lead from D.C. but was replaced almost immediately by his Williams team mate Nakajima. The time he notched up remained good enough for him to finish in fourth. 

Felippe Massa who, overall, never looked as comfortable in his Ferrari as his World Champion team mate, split the two Williams along with Mark Webber in the Red Bull. Coulthard slipped down to eighth position. Hamilton was unable to make a good enough impression to make it in to the top ten and had to settle for eleventh.

Early on he spun under braking for turn ten and stopped in the pit entry road on his final lap. Kovalainen only managed to complete eight laps. He spent the first half of the session in the garage due to a gear box problem and then he rolled to a halt at the exit of turn five just past the one-hour mark. 

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