Practice 2 Report - Alonso stays top but Hamilton closes in

Fernando Alonso set the fastest time of the Friday afternoon session at Indianapolis with a best lap of 1m12.156s. This was slightly more than a tenth ahead of Lewis Hamilton, who is getting closer as he learns the Indianapolis. Ferrari showed better form than has been the case of late with Felipe Massa just a tenth behind Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen not far behind him. There was then a gap back to Nick Heidfeld, who had an off-track moment in the course of the session. Without that adventures he might have been faster but all will not be revealed until qualifying on Saturday. The Red Bull-Renaults were quick but remain rather frail with David Coulthard sixth but Mark Webber stopping with a mechanical problem in the middle of the session. Nico Rosberg was seventh in his Williams-Toyota, while Heikki Kovalainen had a decent run and ended up eighth overall, ahead of the Hondas of Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button.

Sebastian Vettel was next up in his BMW Sauber and then came Webber, Tonio Liuzzi and Anthony Davidson.

Giancarlo Fisichella was much further down the order than one might have expected but was still ahead of Alexander Wurz, in the second Williams, the Toyota of Jarno Trulli, the second Toro Rosso of Scott Speed, Takuma Sato's Super Aguri, Ralf Schumacher's Toyota and then a gap back to the two Spykers, with Christijan Albers ahead of Adrian Sutil again.

The gaps in the midfield were tiny and so any hint of a mistake will be severely punished on Saturday afternoon.