Saturday, November 1, 2008

Alonso fastest in practice










Fernando Alonso denied Lewis Hamilton the prospect of setting the fastest overall lap in Saturday's practice.
Hamilton led the way for virtually the entire hour-long session on Saturday, bar for a few seconds late on when McLaren team-mate Heikki Kovalainen briefly nudged the Briton off his lofty perch.
But within seconds Hamilton again topped the timesheets with a lap of one minute 12.212 seconds, just under a tenth quicker than that of Alonso's best on Friday when the Spaniard held sway.
But in the dying moments after the clock had ticked down to zero and the chequered flag had fallen, Alonso was the last to cross the line, and he pipped Hamilton by 0.071secs.
The Renault driver clearly appears intent on grabbing pole ahead of the title-deciding clash at Interlagos between Hamilton and Felipe Massa, who was fourth quickest in his Ferrari.
Should that be the case, it would put an interesting twist on the start of the race given the controversial year he faced at McLaren last season.
Although Alonso this week has said he has no beef with Hamilton, he has made it clear he wants anyone other than McLaren to claim the crown.
Nevertheless, it was still a strong session from Hamilton who holds a seven-point lead over Massa and only has to finish in the top five to become F1's youngest champion.
Behind the leading duo came Kovalainen, finally showing some speed in his McLaren, although both he and Hamilton are already showing significant tyre wear and that could prove an issue in the race.
Massa was 0.171secs down on Alonso, with a competitive session underlined by the fact the next 13 drivers were also within a second of the two-time world champion.
Sebastian Vettel in his Toro Rosso was the best of the rest ahead of Nick Heidfeld in his BMW Sauber and the second Toro Rosso of Sebastien Bourdais.
Mark Webber, Nelson Piquet and Jarno Trulli completed the top 10 in their Red Bull, Renault and Toyota respectively, with the latter just 0.316secs down.

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