Spanish GP Free Practice 2 - Rosberg fastest

Nico Rosberg returned to the top of the timesheets this afternoon at Circuit de Catalunya, recording a best lap of 1:21.588s in his Williams Toyota with team-mate Kazuki Nakajima second fastest, just under two-tenths of a second adrift.

As ever in practice, it is really hard to read too much into the lap times as we do not know what fuel levels the teams opted to run and how many set of tyres they used over the 90 minute session. Rosberg of course has topped many practice sessions so far this year, but has generally flattered only to deceive as the team has just 3.5 points from the first four races of the season. Rosberg pulled his FW31 off track with a mechanical problem just ahead of the chequered flag.

At the other end of the scale we know that Toyota has a tremendous package in the TF109 and this afternoon Timo Glock and Jarno Trulli put in more laps than any other driver and were slowest of the 19 runners to take part in the second practice session, indicating a differing practice strategy.

In between the two Toyota-powered teams, Fernando Alonso was third fastest in his Renault much to the delight of the large Spanish crowds on hand today while team-mate Nelson Piquet survived two spins to record the eighth fastest time in his R29. Piquet in particular has been vocal about the lack of simulated qualifying the team has permitted him to date, but today it seemed he spent a majority of the day looking at his qualifying setup.

Rubens Barrichello led the Brawn Mercedes challenge with the fourth fastest time, just over two-tenths off the ultimate pace with team-mate and championship leader Jenson Button sixth fastest.
Traditionally the Brackley-based team focus much of their Friday running on the race programme.

Red Bull Renault picked up the pace this afternoon with Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel fifth and seventh best ahead of Piquet while Sebastien Buemi's Toro Rosso Ferrari suffered a left rear brake fire on his first timed lap of the day and the Swiss racer was forced to miss the first hour of running. Buemi got back on track late in the session and was immediately on the pace as he ended the afternoon ninth fastest with team-mate Sebastien Bourdais 11th.

Ferrari has a much revised F60 package on hand this weekend in Barcelona with Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa recording the tenth and 15th best times respectively for the defending champions with the Mercedes-powered Giancarlo Fisichella 12th in his Force India ahead of the McLaren Mercedes-duo of Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen.

BMW Sauber were back down the timesheets this afternoon with Nick Heidfeld slowest again for much of the session. Robert Kubica posted the 16th best time with Heidfeld up to 17th just ahead of the chequered flag.

With the Toyota duo of Glock and Trulli slowest, Adrian Sutil was forced to sit out the entire session in his Force India Mercedes due 'a fuel cell problem'.