Formula One news

Alonso dominates second practice

Alonso went fastest in the second Friday practice session in Budapest this afternoon with a best of 1:20.919s. The Spaniard was over three tenths of a second quicker than surprise second-fastest Heikki Kovalainen in the Renault. Lewis Hamilton was third and over four tenths adrift of his McLaren team-mate's time.

Nico Rosberg was fourth fastest for Williams ahead of Nick Heidfeld and Ferrari drivers Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa. Giancarlo Fisichella, Jarno Trulli and Robert Kubica in the second BMW Sauber made up the top ten. Sebastian Vettel put in another strong performance - just 0.008s slower than Toro Rosso team-mate Vitantonio Liuzzi in 20th. Other rookie Sakon Yamamoto looks like he will have his work cut out for him this weekend in Budapest. He was over 2.5s slower than Spyker team-mate Adrian Sutil in 22nd.

With temperatures higher than this morning's practice session, it took Alonso just ten minutes to beat Kubica's fastest time from the first session, despite making a mistake and running wide in the first sector. Hamilton quickly edged out Alonso's time before going a further three tenths quicker. However by the half hour mark it was the two Renaults who had put themselves at the top - Kovalainen going 0.415s quicker than his team-mate Fischella with a 1:21.283s.

Ten minutes later McLaren managed to re-stamp its authority - firstly Hamilton splitting the two Renaults with a 1:21.338s and then Alonso going clear fastest with a 1:20.919s. The order remained more or less the same for the rest of the session until the last five minutes when it looked like Hamilton would go fastest, having set the quickest time in sector one, only for the McLaren driver to lose the backend in the second sector and spin off into the gravel. A few minutes later Massa spun on the last corner, whilst pushing to improve on his seventh-fastest time.

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