Practice 2: Kovy puts McLaren on top
Date published : 05 Jun 2009 - 13:39:47
Heikki Kovalainen completed an encouraging first day for McLaren in Turkey by topping the practice timesheet on Friday afternoon.
During an unusual session in which all the teams struggled with the softer of the two tyre compounds, Kovalainen set the pace on the harder Bridgestone rubber after 28 of the 90 minutes and remained unbeaten thereafter.Fernando Alonso came close to deposing him on a soft tyre run in the dying moments, but graining in the final sector left the Renault star a scant 0.006s adrift.Robert Kubica showed much-improved form for BMW Sauber to take third ahead of Williams's Kazuki Nakajima.
Sebastian Vettel s Red Bull suddenly ground to a halt half an hour into the session with an engine failure, but despite playing no further part in the proceedings the German wound up fifth quickest. In contrast to the slow-burning P1, the afternoon session was busy from the outset with the track now offering a decent level of grip.The times duly tumbled as drivers worked through their initial hard tyre runs, with the Williams and McLaren drivers trading fastest laps and Kovalainen setting a benchmark of 1m28.841s.
But when they switched to the soft rubber most drivers went slower rather than finding speed as they usually would.Lewis Hamilton s McLaren seemed to be balanced on a knife edge and the world champion spun twice in quick succession, first on the exit of turn one and then in turn nine.Both times the MP4-24 swapped ends on him after what appeared routine contact with the kerb, and a further ragged moment in turn one shortly afterwards underlined how tricky the car was to drive.Meanwhile Ferrari, too, was in disarray, Kimi Raikkonen reporting concerns about his front wing and Felipe Massa complaining of severe tyre graining.
The Brazilian s engineer Rob Smedley reassured him that everyone was suffering that particular affliction, but conceded that Massa s degradation looked particularly bad.Alonso seemed to be making a better job than most people of getting the soft tyres to work, but still found the time ebbing away through the slow final three corners on his late fliers.The net result was that the order remained unusually static throughout the majority of the session, although a steady stream of off-course excursions broke up the torpor.Kovalainen, Nakajima, Nelson Piquet, Massa, Nick Heidfeld, Hamilton (at least three times) and both Toro Rosso drivers all spun or took to the vast asphalt run-off areas while Nakajima and Giancarlo Fisichella tangled rather unnecessarily in turns 12 and 13 two minutes before the chequered flag came out.Jarno Trulli showed that Toyota is unlikely to repeat its dismal Monaco showing here in Turkey with the sixth quickest time, while Friday morning s pacesetter Nico Rosberg had to make do with seventh.Rubens Barrichello was the quicker of the Brawns in eighth, having shown promising pace on the hard tyre, while Mark Webber (Red Bull) and Piquet s Renault rounded out the top 10.Massa, runaway points leader Jenson Button and reigning champion Hamilton filled the next three places ahead of Timo Glock in the second Toyota and the unhappy Raikkonen.Heidfeld, the Force Indias and the Toro Rossos brought up the rear.TurkishGrand Prix free practice sessiontwo
1.KOVALAINENMcLaren 1m28.841s
2.ALONSO Renault1m28.847s
3.KUBICABMW 1m29.056s
4.NAKAJIMA Williams1m29.091s
5.VETTELRed Bull1m29.202s
6.TRULLI Toyota1m29.207s
7.ROSBERG Williams1m29.257s
8.BARRICHELLOBrawn 1m29.305s
9.WEBBERRed Bull1m29.383s
10.PIQUET Renault 1m29.401s
11.MASSA Ferrari1m29.416s
12.BUTTONBrawn 1m29.430s
13. HAMILTONMcLaren1m29.435s
14.GLOCK Toyota 1m29.518s
15.RAIKKONENFerrari 1m29.520s
16.HEIDFELDBMW 1m29.550s
17.SUTIL ForceIndia1m30.081s
18.FISICHELLAForce India1m30.091s
19.BOURDAISToro Rosso1m30.295s
20.BUEMI Toro Rosso1m30.629s
