McLaren throw down gauntlet to Ferrari

McLaren dominated the second practice session for this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix to demonstrate their determination to finally end Ferrari’s dominance of Formula One.

The former world champions have shown promising form in pre-season testing and translated that to competitive action with a fine display in second practice at Albert Park.

Test driver Pedro de la Rosa set the fastest time of the weekend so far with a lap of one minute 25.376 seconds.

McLaren took a one-two courtesy of Kimi Raikkonen, who was just 0.3secs slower than his colleague.

Nick Heidfeld put in a fine late lap to give Williams some encouragement with third place while world champion Michael Schumacher ended the session fourth, nearly three-quarters of a second down.

The other McLaren of Juan Pablo Montoya was fifth quickest with Felipe Massa clocking an impressive effort for Sauber with sixth.

Jenson Button continued to seemingly struggle for pace and the BAR driver was down in eighth, with fellow Briton David Coulthard 12th as the leading Red Bull driver.

Red Bull tester Vitantonio Liuzzi, fresh from topping the timesheets in first practice, spoiled his day by running off into the gravel after just 11 minutes, to bring a premature end to his session.

De la Rosa also saw his progress interrupted when he tangled with Jordan counterpart Robert Doornbos, although neither driver suffered any damage.

After a quiet first session, the second had more incidents and Ralf Schumacher blotted his copybook with a spin into the gravel with 20 minutes remaining.

Giancarlo Fisichella also came to grief when he entered turn 10 too quickly and spun the rear of his Renault.

At the front, McLaren were setting the standard with Montoya and Raikkonen sitting proudly in first and second respectively.

But a familiar face spoiled their party. World champion Schumacher clocked the quickest time of the session with just four minutes remaining to depose old rival Montoya before a late shake-up dropped him to fourth.

In today’s first session, Red Bull test driver Liuzzi set the pace as most of the regular race drivers opted to conserve their engines.

With heavy punishments on the cards for drivers whose engines do not last two whole race weekends, most opted for caution.

That left reigning Formula 3000 champion Liuzzi free to set the fastest lap, ahead of fellow testers de la Rosa and Ricardo Zonta of Toyota.