Prac Two: Lewis puts an end to Ferrari's reignFriday 21st March 2008Lewis Hamilton ended Friday's action in Malaysia at the top of the timesheets after a late charge to dethrone Felipe Massa.
Massa had been leading the way after taking the P1 slot off his team-mate Kimi Raikkonen, who led for the bulk of the session. However, the Finn was unable to hold off a charging Massa, who in turn lost out to Hamilton.
The surprise of the session though, came from Jenson Button and Sebastian Vettel who finished with the fourth and fifth best times respectively. They finished ahead of McLaren driver Heikki Kovalainen.
Report: The start of Practice Two saw a flurry of activity as the drivers hit the track, immediately setting lap times. Fernando Alonso, Nick Heidfeld and Nico Rosberg set the fastest three times before being overtaken by Robert Kubica. The Pole, who sat out most of the morning session, clocked 1:38.160.
Sebastian Vettel took second place behind Kubica, while Nelson Piquet Jr took sixth place. However, all the drivers dropped down two places when Heikki Kovalainen and Lewis Hamilton shot to the top of the timesheets, with Kovalainen 0.167s ahead of his team-mate.
Jarno Trulli moved up to P6 with his team-mate Timo Glock slotting in two places behind him. The arrival of Kimi Raikkonen, though, saw everyone drop one place as the Finn went P1 with a 1:36.119, which was a massive 1.8s faster than Kovalainen's best time.
Improvements for Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button put both Honda drivers in the top ten, while Hamilton overtook his team-mate for second place. The Brit was still a second off Raikkonen's pace at that point.
Piquet moved up to sixth place before losing out to Mark Webber. The Renault driver, however, went even better on his next lap taking fourth place while Button leapt up to P7. Felipe Massa dropped everyone, except Raikkonen, one place as he went second, 0.802s behind his team-mate.
Only two drivers hadn't set a time by 30 minutes into the session: David Coulthard, who wasn't taking part in Practice Two due to his accident during the morning session, and Sebastien Bourdais, who broke down on his installation lap.
Not to be outdone by his team-mate, Alonso moved to fourth place only to be knocked back one slot by Vettel - another impressive lap from the Toro Rosso driver.
Raikkonen improved his time to a 1:36.045 and came under attack from Vettel as the Toro Rosso driver takes second place ahead of Massa and Hamilton.
The two McLarens got back on track, looking to edge ahead of the Ferraris. Kovalainen moved up ahead of Hamilton, getting within a second of Raikkonen's P1 time.
Vettel became the first driver to get within half a second of Raikkonen, closing the gap to 0.429 while Hamilton shaved three tenths off his own time. The McLaren driver moved up to P5 ahead of Nico Rosberg who had just overtaken him with Trulli taking P7 off Alonso before pitting.
Hamilton leapfrogged Kovalainen with Piquet Jr doing the same to Alonso before pitting. Button moved up to seventh place while Raikkonen set a new fastest first sector time. And a fastest second sector. But he loses time in the third and is unable to improve his overall lap time.
Massa, though, did improve his, taking second place, just 0.374s behind his team-mate.
Kubica moved up to seventh place ahead of Button and Trulli. His team-mate Heidfeld was down in 15th place. Hamilton then moved up to second place, 0.369s behind Raikkonen only for the Finn to extend his lead at the top after setting a blistering 1:35.627. Massa followed suit, leapfrogging Hamilton and moving to within a tenth of Raikkonen's time.
Kazuki Najakima made an impression on the timesheets, taking sixth place off Rosberg. However, all eyes were on Massa who finally deposed Raikkonen with a 1:35.485. The Brazilian went on to set three fastest sector times, improving his time to a 1:35.206.
With five minutes left to go Hamilton took the P1 from the Ferrari drivers with a 1:35.055, 0.151s ahead of Massa.
All 20 drivers still in the session hit the track for the final two minutes. Button improved to fourth place, Trulli to sixth and Giancarlo Fisichella broke into the top ten.
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