Free Practice 2 – Räikkönen forces his way past Alonso

Kimi Räikkönen dethrones the national hero, Fernando Alonso, by a whisker and records the best time in this second practice session on the Valencia street circuit.

Until the last moment Alonso was in the lead before Räikkönen came and shook everything up. The Finn achieved this performance thanks to his Super-Soft tires installed four minutes before the end of the session. The reigning world champion ends up on top of the time sheets with a 0.020-second advantage over Alonso.

Jenson Button takes a fantastic third place with Honda by equipping himself with Super-Softs at the last minute. Felipe Massa (Ferrari) and Lewis Hamilton (McLaren) are in the top 5.

McLaren had dominated a large part of the first session. This time, Ferrari proved to be superior.

15 minutes before the checkered flag, Räikkönen and Massa were first and second, respectively, with a 0.001-second gap! Alonso and Button briefly disrupted their dominance before Räikkönen regained the advantage on his last lap.

McLaren was, therefore, more discreet this afternoon as Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen are fifth and sixth.

Timo Glock impresses once again with a seventh place after climbing into the top three. Robert Kubica (BMW) and Nelson Piquet (Renault) finish in eighth and ninth positions respectively, ahead of the surprise performance from Giancarlo Fisichella.

The two Force India cars were in the top half of the standings for a large part of the afternoon, ultimately finishing in 10th place for the Italian and 17th for the German.

Unlike in the morning, the Toro Rosso cars are far behind with the 16th and 19th times, just like Heidfeld, who is sinking in the Valencia harbor in 18th place. Barrichello is last and does not match the feats of his teammate, Button.

As was the case in the morning, most drivers managed to avoid problems despite a relatively narrow circuit and still slippery track.

Many went off into the runoff area at turn number 2. It was Nico Rosberg, in 12th place, who drew the most attention as his Williams went straight off in the final corner and narrowly avoided Mark Webber’s Red Bull (11th). Shortly before, the German had opted for Super-Soft tires.

See you tomorrow morning for the final practice sessions before the afternoon qualifications.

Results Free Practice 2 – European GP – August 22, 2008