Practice 2: Lewis outpaces Alonso... (Friday 19 October 2007)
Lewis Hamilton proved, irrespective of what penalties may or may not be handed out to him ahead of qualifying, he has the pace he need to wrap up the world title in Interlagos by setting the pace in second practice.
The title leader, who is currently under investigation by the stewards for using one more set of wet weather tyres than permitted in the morning, outpaced McLaren team-mate Fernando Alonso by over a tenth of a second.
Both drivers used the super-soft Bridgestones in the closing stages of the session and it was Hamilton who got the best out of them with a best time of 1m12.767s.
Alonso tried to retaliate, and got close, but still ended up 0.122s behind despite clocking the fastest times in sectors two and three.
Nevertheless it seems the Woking squad has the early edge over Ferrari, with neither Felipe Massa nor the third title contender Kimi Raikkonen able to lap within 0.3s of their McLaren rivals.
Massa got closest in third, while the morning-pacesetter Raikkonen only ended up fourth after languishing down in 15th at the start of his final flying run. Indeed it seems the Italian squad has work to do to find more speed overnight to take the fight to McLaren in qualifying.
With the track still damp in parts following the morning's rain, the early drivers to venture out onto the circuit continued to try out Bridgestone's wet weather rubber. However the newly-resurfaced track soon became ripe for dry tyres - promoting a fierce battle for the top spot as the times tumbled.
Both BMW drivers, Massa and Alonso all took turns at the head of the field over the next hour before Hamilton's final effort proved too good for his closest rivals.
Behind the top four, Renault's Giancarlo Fisichella took a strong fifth place, to edge out the first BMW of Robert Kubica.
The Williams duo rounded out the top eight, with Alex Wurz's replacement Kazuki Nakajima finishing the first day of his debut grand prix weekend just 0.009s shy of team leader Nico Rosberg's effort.
David Coulthard continued his fine end-of-season form with ninth place for Red Bull, with BMW's Nick Heidfeld 10th and Ralf Schumacher 11th for Toyota.
Behind Heikki Kovalainen (Renault), were the Hondas of, home hero, Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button. Tonio Liuzzi in the Toro Rosso was snapping at their heels, while his Red Bull stable-mate Mark Webber was down amongst the Super Aguris and Spykers in the second RBR car.
Brazilian Grand Prix free practice session 2 times:1. HAMILTON McLaren 1m12.767s
2. ALONSO McLaren 1m12.889s
3. MASSA Ferrari 1m13.075s
4. RAIKKONEN Ferrari 1m13.112s
5. FISICHELLA Renault 1m13.549s
6. KUBICA BMW 1m13.587s
7. ROSBERG Williams 1m13.655s
8. NAKAJIMA Williams 1m13.664s
9. COULTHARD Red Bull 1m13.706s
10. HEIDFELD BMW 1m13.785s
11. SCHUMACHER Toyota 1m13.829s
12. KOVALAINEN Renault 1m13.879s
13. BARRICHELLO Honda 1m13.892s
14. BUTTON Honda 1m14.095s
15. LIUZZI Toro Rosso 1m14.152s
16. TRULLI Toyota 1m14.179s
17. VETTEL Toro Rosso 1m14.409s
18. SATO Super Aguri 1m14.431s
19. DAVIDSON Super Aguri 1m14.477s
20. WEBBER Red Bull 1m14.543s
21. SUTIL Spyker 1m15.095s
22. YAMAMOTO Spyker 1m15.715s
Brazilian_F1_GP_update_link
