Practice 2: Alonso fastest on home soil

Fernando Alonso gave his passionate Spanish fans hope that he has the car to be a competitive force in the European Grand Prix by topping the times in Friday afternoon practice at a sweltering Valencia.

The local favourite – whose participation at his country’s second grand prix of 2009 was only confirmed on Monday after Renault won its appeal against a one-race suspension – outpaced morning pacesetter Brawn by a massive 0.774s with a late flying lap of 1m39.404s.

Indeed the former champion appeared fired up to ensure he ended the session on top after an earlier quick lap ended in an unusual practice collision with BMW’s Nick Heidfeld following a misunderstanding at the final corner.

Championship leader Brawn will still no doubt be buoyed by its return to the sharp end of the timesheet and followed up its morning 1-4 with second and third, points leader Jenson Button this time sneaking in front of team-mate Rubens Barrichello.

Williams also enjoyed a strong afternoon on the fast, open temporary venue to take fourth and fifth places, Nico Rosberg just over 0.1s ahead of the increasingly steady Kazuki Nakajima.

Force India got both its cars into the top 10 to underline the promise of its VJM02’s latest development push, with Robert Kubica sandwiching Adrian Sutil and Giancarlo Fisichella in an encouraging seventh for BMW in the similarly upgraded F1.09.


Red Bull was again adrift of Brawn and the front-running pace in the afternoon and Sebastian Vettel wound up ninth with team-mate Mark Webber 1.5s behind Alonso in 14th.

Lewis Hamilton, meanwhile, endured a far from ideal afternoon, finishing at the foot of the order after completing just three laps.

The Hungarian GP winner, who was third fastest this morning, suffered what appeared to be a harmless spin in the early minutes of the session but never returned in the remainder of the 90 minutes after it emerged he had damaged his MP4-24’s nose cone while brushing the wall.

With this being the only one of the new-specification noses that McLaren had brought to Valencia, that minor faux pas spelt the end of Hamilton’s session after just three laps.

From the outset the track was clearly offering better grip than in the earlier session, and within 20 minutes Alonso had dipped beneath the morning benchmark and raised a cheer from the grandstands by going fastest.

After 38 minutes Rosberg lowered the mark to 1m41.588s, before Button briefly moved to the top.

The times were tumbling quickly at this point, with Alonso demoting Button but the Briton responding almost immediately with a lap of 1m40.911s.

The closing stages saw the usual flurry of activity after drivers changed to super-soft tyres.

With just over quarter of an hour to go, Nakajima went fastest for Williams, only to be trumped immediately by Barrichello in the Brawn.

Then came an unexpected dramatic twist in the form of Alonso’s collision with Heidfeld on the tricky approach to the final corner.

The BMW driver was going slowly on a wide line, and Alonso came steaming down the inside with his right-front wheel locked up in the belief that Heidfeld was letting him by – only to find the German turning into the corner and into his path.

Cue heavy contact between the pair that broke the Renault’s front wing and launched the BMW into the air, and an irate radio message from Heidfeld who branded Alonso’s move “plain stupid”.

Alonso brushed off the incident and was soon back on the circuit with a new nose section fitted to his R29 – and flying.

A new best time of 1m39.404s left the rest of the field for dead, and he was on course to go even quicker on his next tour until he spun the Renault under braking for the turn 17 hairpin.

Renault rookie Romain Grosjean amassed more useful mileage on his debut grand prix weekend and lapped 1.4s off Alonso’s pace in 13th.

Ferrari continued to struggle, with Kimi Raikkonen 11th and Felipe Massa’s stand-in Luca Badoer 18th, having halved the deficit to his Finnish team-mate compared to the morning session.


European Grand Prix free practice session two

1. ALONSO Renault 1m39.404s
2. BUTTON Brawn 1m40.178s
3. BARRICHELLO Brawn 1m40.209s
4. ROSBERG Williams 1m40.385s
5. NAKAJIMA Williams 1m40.503s
6. SUTIL Force India 1m40.596s
7. KUBICA BMW 1m40.643s
8. FISICHELLA Force India 1m40.681s
9. VETTEL Red Bull 1m40.723s
10. KOVALAINEN McLaren 1m40.738s
11. RAIKKONEN Ferrari 1m40.739s
12. TRULLI Toyota 1m40.770s
13. GROSJEAN Renault 1m40.787s
14. WEBBER Red Bull 1m40.956s
15. GLOCK Toyota 1m40.985s
16. BUEMI Toro Rosso 1m41.156s
17. HEIDFELD BMW 1m41.350s
18. BADOER Ferrari 1m42.017s
19. ALGUERSUARI Toro Rosso 1m42.089s
20. HAMILTON McLaren 1m43.214s

Source: ITV