Practice 2 Report - McLaren stays on top in confusing session

The dangers of reading too much into testing times on Fridays have been highlighted this afternoon in Barcelona with Fernando Alonso going fastest for McLaren in front of an appreciative local crowd. His best lap was three-tenths faster than the Renault of Giancarlo Fisichella with his team mate Heikki Kovalainen third fastest, despite a big spin on his last flying lap. The Renaults have shown little pace thus far and it is assumed that the team took out the fuel and went for times either to impress the local Renault buyers, or to check out whether the cars are working well in qualifying trim.

Others did not bother to go for times and so Felipe Massa was fourth fastest ahead of Lewis Hamilton, who made a mistake at the start of his fastest lap at the end of the session. Kimi Raikkonen was sixth quickest with Nico Rosberg seventh in his Williams ahead of the BMW Sauber of Nick Heidfeld and the Red Bull Renault of Mark Webber.

Completing the top 10 was Scott Speed, an indication that the times are possibly not to be trusted too much as the Toro Rosso is not usually in the hunt.

Eleventh quickest was BMW's Robert Kubica with David Coulthard next up in his Red Bull. Thirteenth was another decent showing from Jenson Button in the troublesome Honda and with Rubens Barrichello next up there is perhaps some reason to suggest that the team has made some progress. Tomorrow will prove the point one way or the other.

Alexander Wurz was next in his Williams ahead of Tonio Liuzzi's Toro Rosso and the two Toyotas, so quick in the morning but not in the hunt in the afternoon. Also down the back on this occasion were Takuma Sato and Anthony Davidson in the Super Aguris, with only the two Spykers behind them.

The bottom line therefore is that the time prove little and we will need to wait until qualifying to see how things have changed in the F1 pecking order in the course of the last month.