» Belgian GP 2nd Practice: Alonso fastest again

Fernando Alonso cast another ominous warning to the rest of the grid, with a last-ditch hot lap proving enough to deny the pace-setting Adrian Sutil the honour of topping the practice timesheets – as he has previous managed in mixed conditions.

It was a bizarre 90-minute session for the drivers, with ten of the final fifteen minutes being lost with some spectators trying to climb the safety fences at Turn 8. With the track drying and the officials electing not to suspend the session – it was simply red-flagged with the clock still counting down – the drivers lost precious time with which to set a hot lap.

Once normal running resumed, just three minutes of the session were left for the drivers to post a competitive time, and Alonso used getting to the front of the queue at the end of the pit lane to his full advantage, with the clear track giving him the best opportunity to post the quickest time of the day.

Wet-weather specialist Adrian Sutil wound up second-quickest, and was followed home by Lewis Hamilton, Robert Kubica, Felipe Massa and Sebastian Vettel.

Jenson Button finishes seventh-fastest, ahead of Pedro de la Rosa, Rubens Barrichello and Kamui Kobayashi.

The session started in damp conditions that dried continuously over the next 90 minutes, although a brief shower in the opening minutes would be enough to pitch Timo Glock into the tyre barriers at Turn 9. Vitantonio Liuzzi also went off-track, but creatively managed to reverse out of the Rivage gravel trap and back to the pits for a new front wing.

The timesheets bore a general reflection of the improving conditions, and the order changed by the minute as drivers found the track conditions steadily improving over the course of the session.

Alonso took the gamble of ditching his wet-weather tyres for the shallower-tread intermediate times, and immediately found his pace improving, before Felipe Massa knocked two seconds off Fernando’s best and broke beneath the 2-minute barrier with a 1:58.311.

Twenty minutes later, Jaime Alguersuari took his Toro Rosso to the top of the timesheets by being the first runner to go for the harder compound dry tyres, and then everyone followed suit as the times began to tumble.

2010 Belgian GP Practice 2 Session Times:

	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
1.	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1:49.032	25
2.	Adrian Sutil	Force India Mercedes	+ 0.125	17
3.	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren Mercedes	+ 0.216	14
4.	Robert Kubica	Renault	+ 0.250	20
5.	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	+ 0.556	23
6.	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Renault	+ 0.657	19
7.	Jenson Button	McLaren Mercedes	+ 0.723	20
8.	Pedro de la Rosa	Sauber Ferrari	+ 1.049	27
9.	Rubens Barrichello	Williams Cosworth	+ 1.096	22
10.	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber Ferrari	+ 1.168	24
11.	Vitaly Petrov	Renault	+ 1.219	24
12.	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes GP	+ 1.309	23
13.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes GP	+ 1.350	21
14.	Jaime Alguersuari	Toro Rosso Ferrari	+ 1.650	25
15.	Nico Hülkenberg	Williams Cosworth	+ 1.799	20
16.	Vitantonio Liuzzi	Force India Mercedes	+ 2.488	17
17.	Sébastien Buemi	Toro Rosso Ferrari	+ 2.491	25
18.	Mark Webber	Red Bull Renault	+ 2.604	19
19.	Heikki Kovalainen	Lotus Cosworth	+ 4.448	15
20.	Jarno Trulli	Lotus Cosworth	+ 4.607	21
21.	Lucas di Grassi	Virgin Racing Cosworth	+ 5.293	17
22.	Bruno Senna	HRT Cosworth	+ 6.719	24
23.	Sakon Yamamoto	HRT Cosworth	+ 7.007	21
24.	Timo Glock	Virgin Racing Cosworth	+ 14.147	3