Nico Rosberg is flying

Nico Rosberg set the Friday pace for the Williams Toyota team topping both the lunchtime and evening sessions. While the diffuser dispute has not gone away, it is notable that the three teams under the spotlight, ended the second practice session of the Australian Grand Prix at the head of the timesheets.

The 90 minute session was largely uneventful as cooler evening conditions made it difficult for the 20 runners to make late gains, despite opting to run the super-soft Bridgestone Potenza ‘option’ tyre.

Rosberg set the pace with a best lap of 1:26.053s, a tenth clear of Brawn Mercedes' Rubens Barrichello, who was one of the few to find time just ahead of the chequered flag. Rosberg’s time was less than a second off the fastest time in qualifying last year. Jarno Trulli was third fastest for Toyota and put in the most laps in this session. Team-mate Timo Glock was sixth fastest with Mark Webber and Jenson Button splitting the duo for Red Bull Renault and Brawn GP.

Webber lost much of the first session due to a mechanical problem, but had no such problems in the second as he lapped just three-tenths off the ultimate pace in his RB5.

Kazuki Nakajima, second fastest in first practice, was again showing well in the second Williams as he posted the seventh fastest time ahead of Sebastian Vettel who looked very ragged and ultimately spun his Red Bull out of the session with 30 minutes remaining.

Adrian Sutil continued to show well for the Mercedes-powered Force India team with the ninth fastest time while Giancarlo Fisichella was two-tenths adrift in 13th position.

There wasn't much for Ferrari to smile about on the opening day of the new season. Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen were just tenth and 11th fastest respectively. Renault will also be disappointed to see Fernando Alonso and Nelson Piquet 12th and 18th, but they are in good company as both BMW Sauber and McLaren Mercedes also struggled mightily.

Nick Heidfeld was 14th ahead of Robert Kubica, Sebastien Bourdais in the leading Toro Rosso Ferrari, Heikki Kovalainen and Piquet. Rookie Sebastien Buemi brought up the rear in the second Toro Rosso, two seconds off the pace.

There is a very different look to not just the cars, but also the timesheets in 2009...