Raikkonen and Massa still in with a chance
Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa have both offered hope they are still alive and kicking in this year’s Formula One world championship.
Raikkonen set the fastest practice time ahead of tomorrow’s Belgian Grand Prix, with Ferrari team-mate Massa a quarter of a second off the pace at the end of the hour-long session.
The Finn, who trails title leader Lewis Hamilton by 18 points with four grands prix remaining, set a time of one minute 46.137secs for the seven kilometre Spa circuit, the longest on the Formula One calendar.
Massa, whose championship chances appear slim as he is 23 points behind Hamilton, was in close attendance as the both completed 17 laps.
Fernando Alonso was third quickest, and again just had the edge over his McLaren team-mate Hamilton, who holds a three-point cushion over the reigning world champion.
Alonso was 0.370 adrift of Raikkonen, with Hamilton almost a further 0.3 behind, followed by Heikki Kovalainen in his Renault and Toyota’s Jarno Trulli.
Honda’s Jenson Button was 12th quickest at 1.630 down, followed by David Coulthard in 13th for Red Bull Racing.
Super Aguri’s Anthony Davidson is clearly struggling on this track as he was again down in a lowly 20th place, almost three seconds behind Raikkonen.
Robert Kubica’s BMW Sauber appeared to suffer an engine problem early on as smoke billowed from the car before he pulled off track, with his session coming to an end after 15 minutes.
If Kubica’s car does require an engine change then it will lead to a 10-place grid penalty after today’s qualifying.
