Raikkonen quickest on second day at Sepang

Work continued at Malaysia's Sepang circuit on March 28th and on the second day of the test Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen was the quickest of the 13 drivers on the time sheet. The Finn clocked 1:35.258 while working on set up for the Malaysian Grand Prix, along with aerodynamic and electronic tests. Teammate Felipe Massa is scheduled to take over on Thursday.

Kimi Raikkonen, Scuderia Ferrari.

Photo by xpb.cc.

The Williams of Alex Wurz was a notable second fastest, albeit over four tenths down on Raikkonen. Red Bull's David Coulthard was a slightly surprising third, just fractionally behind Wurz, while sister team Toro Rosso had Scott Speed and Tonio Liuzzi sharing a car and between them. Speed was the quicker of the two in 12th and Liuzzi rounded off the times in 13th.

Ralf Schumacher was on duty for Toyota and posted the fourth best time of the day. "We worked on different set-ups, seeing how the car and tyres work in different conditions and everything went well," he said. "We have a bit of work to do after the first race of the season to get the performance we expect but so far the team is making good progress and I hope that is the case tomorrow as well."

Robert Kubia continued for BMW Sauber and was fifth. He completed well over 100 laps while evaluating tyre options and also carried out cooling systems checks, electronic settings and practiced starts. The team reported no problems during the day. Nick Heidfeld is due to be on track on Thursday to work on his race preparations.

Lewis Hamilton was behind the wheel for McLaren and was sixth on the time sheet. He continued with the tyre and set up work started yesterday by test driver Pedro de la Rosa. He also familiarized himself with the track as he has not raced at Sepang before.

Super Aguri shared its car between two drivers, Takuma Sato seventh and Anthony Davidson, recovered from his back pains after Melbourne, 11th. Sato did long runs for tyre evaluation and Davidson, who returned to the cockpit with seemingly no problems, focused on set up work and will conclude the test on Thursday.

Honda also had both race drivers on track, Rubens Barrichello eighth and Jenson Button 10th as the team continued to try and iron out its problems. Barrichello has been quoted as saying that the Honda is not a bad car but it loses rear grip when turning in. The Brazilian is confident that the RA107 has the potential to become more competitive.

Heikki Kovalainen took over from tester Nelson A. Piquet at Renault and was ninth fastest. He was another who was making his Sepang debut and focused on familiarizing himself with the circuit while working on set up and aerodynamic evaluations. He also practiced pit stops.

"This was a pretty positive first day for me," he said. "It is great fun driving here. The conditions are incredibly hot, but the track was really enjoyable to drive. I felt comfortable straight away, was able to push hard and the times were consistent. The balance of the car was pretty good, and we did some interesting tests."