» European GP: Alonso goes quicker in FP2

No doubt to the delight of his home fans, Fernando Alonso has ended Friday’s running of the European Grand Prix weekend in the best possible fashion, by finishing the second practice session fastest overall.

With the super-soft Pirelli compounds available for the first time this weekend, the Spaniard posted a fastest lap of 1:37.968 to beat Lewis Hamilton to the top spot by just 0.2 seconds.

After a quiet morning’s running – where it is rumoured he was testing Red Bull’s British GP-spec exhaust system – Sebastian Vettel finished the session third-fastest, while Michael Schumacher and Felipe Massa completed the top-five.

Jenson Button manhandled his oversteering McLaren to sixth-fastest, while Mark Webber – quickest in this morning’s practice session – finished seventh-fastest, just half a second off Alonso’s pace.

The top-ten was completed by Nico Rosberg, Nick Heidfeld and Vitaly Petrov.

Paul di Resta completed just a handful of laps on his first outing on the circuit this weekend, with the Scot joining the circuit in the closing minutes while his Force India mechanics carried out frantic repairs to his car, which was damaged after test driver Nico Hülkenberg slapped the wall in the opening session this morning.

Jaime Alguersuari failed to complete any mileage in this session after his Toro Rosso developed an engine problem.

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2011 European Grand Prix – Free Practice 2 Session Times:

	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
1.	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari F150° Italia	1:37.968	35
2.	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren Mercedes MP4-26	+ 0.227	26
3.	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Renault RB7	+ 0.297	31
4.	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes GP W02	+ 0.347	30
5.	Felipe Massa	Ferrari F150° Italia	+ 0.475	32
6.	Jenson Button	McLaren Mercedes MP4-26	+ 0.515	30
7.	Mark Webber	Red Bull Renault RB7	+ 0.563	26
8.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes GP W02	+ 1.013	33
9.	Nick Heidfeld	Renault R31	+ 1.072	35
10.	Vitaly Petrov	Renault R31	+ 1.618	27
11.	Adrian Sutil	Force India Mercedes VJM04	+ 1.658	31
12.	Rubens Barrichello	Williams Cosworth FW33	+ 2.052	34
13.	Pastor Maldonado	Williams Cosworth FW33	+ 2.333	34
14.	Paul di Resta	Force India Mercedes VJM04	+ 2.395	7
15.	Sébastien Buemi	Toro Rosso Ferrari STR6	+ 2.486	32
16.	Sergio Pérez	Sauber Ferrari C30	+ 2.563	37
17.	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber Ferrari C30	+ 4.115	34
18.	Heikki Kovalainen	Lotus Renault T128	+ 4.188	39
19.	Jarno Trulli	Lotus Renault T128	+ 4.271	25
20.	Timo Glock	Virgin Racing Cosworth MVR-02	+ 4.305	21
21.	Jérôme d’Ambrosio	Virgin Racing Cosworth MVR-02	+ 4.841	36
22.	Vitantonio Liuzzi	HRT F1 Cosworth F111	+ 6.492	29
23.	Narain Karthikeyan	HRT F1 Cosworth F111	+ 8.938	16
24.	Jaime Alguersuari	Toro Rosso Ferrari STR6	no time