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Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen both spun their Ferraris towards the end of Friday’s second practice session at Magny-Cours, but they remained first and second on the timesheets when the hour and a half was over.

The Brazilian was 0.035s faster, lapping his F2007 in 1m 15.435s compared to the Finn’s best lap of 1m 15.488s.

It was a bit of an odd session, to be blunt, with the Ferrari-powered Toro Rossos featuring in the top four for some time. In the end they were split by Lewis Hamilton, McLaren claiming only fifth place. Scott Speed’s 1m 15.773s left him third, ahead of the Englishman (1m 15.780s) and team mate Tonio Liuzzi (1m 15.952s. To make it a good day for Red Bull, David Coulthard was sixth in the RB3 on 1m 15.958s, but on the debit side Mark Webber stopped out on the circuit partway through when his RB3 glided to a halt in Turn 4 after he had posted a 1m 16.562s. That was 10th fastest at the time, but 16th by the time the session was over.

Nico Rosberg’s strong form continued with seventh fastest time of 1m 16.003s for Williams, and it was not until you got to eighth place that Fernando Alonso’s name featured. The Spaniard had a wild off-course moment towards the end and had to settle for 1m 16.049s, and he was hounded by Super Aguri’s Anthony Davidson (1m 16.162s) - who managed to run into the rear of the passing Liuzzi as he exited his garage at the start - and Toyota’s Ralf Schumacher (1m 16.184s).

Then came Renault’s Giancarlo Fisichella (1m 16.205s), BMW Sauber’s Robert Kubica (1m 16.236s), Williams’Alex Wurz (1m 16.260s), Toyota’s Jarno Trulli (1m 16.285s), Honda’s Jenson Button (1m 16.395s), Webber (1m 16.562s), Renault’s Heikki Kovalainen (1m 16.735s), Honda’s Rubens Barrichello (1m 16.950s) and BMW Sauber’s Nick Heidfeld (1m 16.968s after a problem from his back resurfaced after last week’s Silverstone test). Takuma Sato was 20th on 1m 17.165s for Super Aguri, ahead of the Spykers of Adrian Sutil (1m 18.213s) and Christijan Albers (1m 18.708s).

Besides the Ferrari drivers and Alonso (who also went off earlier in Turn 13), Button and Liuzzi straightlined Turn 7 on one occasion.

On this super-smooth surface there does not so far seem to be a huge difference between Bridgestone’s hard and soft tyre compounds, but it remains to be seen who has more pace left on Saturday and whether Ferrari have the upper hand this weekend.