Practice Two - Glock and Alonso overshadow title rivals 10 Oct 2008
Timo Glock stole the limelight for Toyota in Friday afternoon’s second practice session for the Japanese Grand Prix. Glock, with a fresh V8 after opting to take his 'joker' engine change, lapped the Fuji Speedway in 1m 18.383s to head Singapore winner Fernando Alonso on 1m 18.426s for Renault.
Their pace relegated title rivals Lewis Hamilton (1m 18.463s) and Felipe Massa (1m 18.491s) to third and fourth for McLaren and Ferrari respectively, ahead of Kimi Raikkonen (1m 18.725s) in the second F2008, Red Bull’s Mark Webber and Williams’ Kazuki Nakajima (1m 18.734s apiece).
Monza winner Sebastian Vettel was eighth for Toro Rosso (1m 18.761s), followed by McLaren’s Heikki Kovalainen (1m 18.803s), Toyota’s Jarno Trulli (1m 18.863s), BMW Sauber’s Robert Kubica (1m 18.865s), Renault’s Nelson Piquet (1m 18.888s) and Williams’ Nico Rosberg (1m 18.981s).
You can’t say that the times in F1 are not extremely close right now.
It was a similar story behind the top 13. Sebastien Bourdais lapped his Toro Rosso in 1m 19.040s, chased by Honda’s Rubens Barrichello (1m 19.258s), Force India’s Adrian Sutil (1m 19.287s), Red Bull’s David Coulthard (1m 19.327s), Force India’s Giancarlo Fisichella (1m 19.482s), BMW Sauber’s Nick Heidfeld (1m 19.894s) and Honda’s Jenson Button (1m 19.999s).
This time only 1.616 seconds covered the whole 20-car field, as most of the front runners focused on distance running as they made their tyre comparisons.
Once again, there were several minor incidents, as Webber, Bourdais, Vettel, Glock, Alonso, Fisichella and Barrichello all ventured briefly off course.
