All Alonso and McLaren on day one
Ferrnando Alonso’s time set in the morning practice session remained unbeaten this afternoon at Indianapolis during the second practice session of the day. It was however Alonso who again set the pace for McLaren Mercedes with a best lap of 1:12.156s, just over two-tenths off the best lap of the day.
Lewis Hamilton underlined the fact that McLaren have retained the edge again over rivals Ferrari as he set the second best time, 0.153s slower than Alonso and just over a tenth clear of Felipe Massa in what is a very tightly bunched field.
Ferrari are hoping that they can challenge McLaren this weekend and early indications are that they are closer than they have been of late with Massa third fastest and Kimi Raikkonen close behind in fourth position.
Nick Heidfeld took the fifth fastest time in his BMW Sauber, four-tenths back from Raikkonen while Sebastian Vettel ended his first day as a Formula One race driver with a respectable 11th fastest time in the sister F1.07.
David Coulthard has run well all day today in his Red Bull Renault and was a solid sixth in this session while team-mate Mark Webber was running strongly in the top ten as well before some kind of mechanical drama sidelines his RB3 with a third of the session remaining. The Australian dropped to 12th.
Nico Rosberg set the seventh fastest time with an almost identical time from the morning session.
Team-mate Alex Wurz missed the morning session to allow Kazuki Nakajima a run in the FW29, but this afternoon Wurz seemed to lack pace and only a late lap moved him up to 16th position overall.
Heikki Kovalainen led the way at Renault with the eighth fastest time with Fisichella back in 15th while the Honda duo of Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button rounded out the top ten for Honda.
Tonio Liuzzi ran firmly in the top ten for much of the session but would find himself bumped down to 13th in the later stages in his Toro Rosso Ferrari while Anthony Davidson put in a good lap late on to move 14th in his Super Aguri Honda.
Toyota struggled for pace with Jarno Trulli 17th ahead of Scott Speed and Takuma Sato while Ralf Schumacher was just 20th in his TF107 ahead only of the Spyker Ferrari duo of Christijan Albers and Adrian Sutil.
The pecking order remains unchanged on day one of the US Grand Prix.
Earl ALEXANDER
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