Prac Two: Hamilton stuns rivals and Aussie fans

Friday 14th March 2008

Lewis Hamilton put a dent in the Aussie celebrations as he pipped Mark Webber to the P1 slot in Friday's second practice for the Australian GP.

Webber had led the way for much of the session, hitting the top of the timesheets a third of the way through the hour and half. He held the position until two minutes before the end when his time was destroyed by Hamilton by 0.914s.

Felipe Massa finished in third place, ahead of Heikki Kovalainen and David Coulthard. Kimi Raikkonen, the fastest man in practice one, ended the day in sixth place.

Report: With track temperature reaching a sweltering 48'C Practice Two for the Australian GP got underway with Heikki Kovalainen taking the early initiative from Ferrari drivers Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen. Sebastian Vettel and Nico Rosberg completed the top five before the arrival of Lewis Hamilton dropped them all one position as the McLaren driver took to the top of the timesheets.

Mark Webber slotted in to fifth place ahead of Kubica while Vettel improved to P7, edging out Renault's double World Champion Fernando Alonso. Massa improved to P2 while Sebastien Bourdais and Nick Heidfeld completed the top ten at the end of the first half an hour while saw all 22 drivers barring David coulthard set a lap time.

Alonso went on a charge improving to fourth place, however, the Spaniard was still over a second off Hamilton's P1 time. Webber's turn at the top as Red Bull's Australian driver put in a 1:27.614 to edge Hamilton by 0.128s.

Coulthard gets on the timesheets although the Scot is almost five seconds off the pace of his Red Bull team-mate.

Kovalainen moves ahead of Hamilton and into second place, just 0.069s off the pace while Kazuki Nakajima puts his Williams up into seventh place ahead of Robert Kubica.

Coulthard improves to 20th place leaving Nelson Piquet Jr and Anthony Davidson languishing at the bottom of the timesheets.

Rosberg shows Williams's pace to move into fifth place ahead of Raikkonen while Heidfeld goes up into P7. Webber continues to lap at the front of the pack, extending his advantage over Kovalainen to 0.210s.

Jenson Button moves up to 15th place, locked in a battle with the Force India drivers. Adrian Sutil is P14, a tenth ahead of Button, while Giancarlo Fisichella is a tenth behind the Brit.

As the drivers continue to work on set-up for the race, the timesheets remain stagnent except for Coulthard who continues to claw his way up the order. With half an hour remaining the Scot is up to P7 but still 1.174s off his team-mate's leading time.

Trulli improves to fifth place as all 12 of the top 12 are out on track. Massa goes up to second place, 0.167s short of Webber's P1 time. A huge leap forward from Timo Glock sees the German join his Toyota team-mate in the top eight as he slots behind Raikkonen.

The drivers struggled to improve their lap times in the last 10 minutes and weren't helped by a yellow flag brought out when Trulli stopped out on track in sector one. However, once the Italian's Toyota was moved out of the way the track status returned to green.

A last gasp effort from Hamilton saw the McLaren driver post three fastest sector times on his way to P1 with a 1:26.559 while put him almost a full second ahead of second placed Webber.

Fisichella put in an impressive lap to take seventh place off Raikkonen, only to drop one place when Coulthard posted the fifth best time. Raikkonen improves to sixth place while Jenson Button goes P11.

Times
01 L. Hamilton McLaren 1:26.559 33 laps
02 M. Webber Red Bull 1:27.473 27 laps
03 F. Massa Ferrari 1:27.640 29 laps
04 H. Kovalainen McLaren 1:27.683 29 laps
05 D. Coulthard Red Bull 1:28.037 26 laps
06 K. Räikkönen Ferrari 1:28.208 28 laps
07 J. Trulli Toyota 1:28.292 22 laps
08 N. Rosberg Williams 1:28.352 31 laps
09 G. Fisichella Force India F1 1:28.469 32 laps
10 T. Glock Toyota 1:28.582 28 laps
11 J. Button Honda 1:28.632 30 laps
12 N. Heidfeld BMW 1:28.731 33 laps
13 F. Alonso Renault 1:28.779 37 laps
14 R. Barrichello Honda 1:28.849 28 laps
15 R. Kubica BMW 1:28.860 35 laps
16 K. Nakajima Williams 1:29.077 33 laps
17 A. Sutil Force India F1 1:29.161 32 laps
18 S. Vettel Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:29.193 40 laps
19 N. Piquet jr. Renault 1:29.518 14 laps
20 S. Bourdais Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:29.605 11 laps
21 T. Sato Super Aguri 1:30.663 16 laps
22 A. Davidson Super Aguri 1:31.527 8 laps

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