Fernando Alonso was quickest again in the second practice session in Monte Carlo. The Ferrari driver completed a clean sweep of the Thursday sessions by beating Mercedes' Nico Rosberg by 0.109sec, with Sebastian Vettel third for Red Bull.

After frantic place-swapping early on, Alonso returned to the front of the field with a 1m15.435sec on soft tires 37 minutes into the session, then increased his advantage by going half a second quicker on his next lap. He stayed there for the rest of the afternoon, as light rain prevented anyone making improvements in the second half of the session.

The rain was never heavy enough to convince anyone to try intermediates, and most stayed out trying to learn what they could in the slightly slippery conditions. There were a number of close calls with the barriers and trips through the escape roads at Sainte Devote and the chicane, but no contact with the barriers despite all the slides.

Having spent much of the morning in the pits, Rosberg completed 38 laps this afternoon to take second, with his teammate Michael Schumacher fifth behind Vettel and Felipe Massa in the second Ferrari.

Robert Kubica produced some spectacular driving to take Renault to sixth, having been among the many drivers to top the times during the opening half hour.

McLaren's low-key Thursday continued with Lewis Hamilton seventh and Jenson Button ninth, split by Force India's Adrian Sutil. Mark Webber completed the top 10 in the second Red Bull, while only 0.8sec covered pacesetter Alonso to 11th-placed Vitaly Petrov's Renault.

The second session saw more issues with traffic than the morning had, including an incident in the final corners where Massa appeared to be hanging back to get a clear lap and was caught by Heikki Kovalainen on a flying lap, with the Lotus diving inside the Ferrari and past into the last turn, seemingly to Massa's surprise. The Finn ended the day as quickest among the new teams.


Pos  Driver         Team                   Time              Laps
 1.  Alonso         Ferrari                 1:14.904            36
 2.  Rosberg        Mercedes                1:15.013  + 0.109   39
 3.  Vettel         Red Bull-Renault        1:15.099  + 0.195   47
 4.  Massa          Ferrari                 1:15.120  + 0.216   44
 5.  Schumacher     Mercedes                1:15.143  + 0.239   38
 6.  Kubica         Renault                 1:15.192  + 0.288   38
 7.  Hamilton       McLaren-Mercedes        1:15.249  + 0.345   32
 8.  Sutil          Force India-Mercedes    1:15.460  + 0.556   42
 9.  Button         McLaren-Mercedes        1:15.619  + 0.715   37
10.  Webber         Red Bull-Renault        1:15.620  + 0.716   28
11.  Petrov         Renault                 1:15.746  + 0.842   44
12.  Buemi          Toro Rosso-Ferrari      1:16.276  + 1.372   46
13.  Hulkenberg     Williams-Cosworth       1:16.348  + 1.444   48
14.  Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth       1:16.522  + 1.618   37
15.  Liuzzi         Force India-Mercedes    1:16.528  + 1.624   42
16.  de la Rosa     Sauber-Ferrari          1:16.599  + 1.695   36
17.  Kobayashi      Sauber-Ferrari          1:16.818  + 1.914   45
18.  Alguersuari    Toro Rosso-Ferrari      1:17.023  + 2.119   28
19.  Kovalainen     Lotus-Cosworth          1:18.184  + 3.280   47
20.  di Grassi      Virgin-Cosworth         1:18.478  + 3.574   38
21.  Trulli         Lotus-Cosworth          1:18.667  + 3.763   13
22.  Glock          Virgin-Cosworth         1:18.721  + 3.817   41
23.  Chandhok       HRT-Cosworth            1:20.313  + 5.409   35
24.  Senna          HRT-Cosworth            1:22.148  + 7.244   11

All Timing Unofficial