Rosberg back on top in second practice

The Williams man's 1m33.339s lap was nearly two tenths faster than Renault's Fernando Alonso could manage, while Jarno Trulli ended the day third quickest.

Jenson Button was the first big gun to set a time in the second 90 minutes, as the world championship leader lapped Sakhir in a 1m35.935s. It wasn't long before the Briton was usurped, first by Force India's Giancarlo Fisichella, and then more significantly, by the two Toyota drivers.

Timo Glock and Trulli, both on the super-soft option Bridgestone slicks, swapped places at the top of time for a large portion of the session with the Italian's lap of 1m33.616 finally settling the issue between them.

But neither could do anything about Rosberg's Williams when the German thumped in his best lap with just 20 minutes to go.

Then in the closing stages, Alonso, having spent most of the day on heavy fuel, banged in a very quick 1m33.530s to go second, having set the fastest first and third sectors.

Last weekend's winner Sebastian Vettel and his Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber moved into contention with fourth and fifth in the last 15 minutes of the season, ahead of Button and an impressive Adrian Sutil. Glock was eventually pushed down to eighth.

Rubens Barrichello and Kazuki Nakajima completed the top ten while world champion Lewis Hamilton ended the day 11th.

Felipe Massa - not running KERS - was the fastest Ferrari driver in 16th, while two places back was Kimi Raikkonen, the pair split by Robert Kubica's BMW.

There was again several instances of drivers running over the kerbs at Turn 1 and Turn 10, while Renault's Nelson Piquet was forced to pit early-on for a broken front wing before finally ending the session 15th.

Pos  Driver       Team                       Time              Laps
 1.  Rosberg      Williams-Toyota       (B)  1:33.339            36
 2.  Alonso       Renault               (B)  1:33.530  + 0.191   25
 3.  Trulli       Toyota                (B)  1:33.616  + 0.277   37
 4.  Vettel       Red Bull-Renault      (B)  1:33.661  + 0.322   29
 5.  Webber       Red Bull-Renault      (B)  1:33.676  + 0.337   32
 6.  Button       Brawn-Mercedes        (B)  1:33.694  + 0.355   35
 7.  Sutil        Force India-Mercedes  (B)  1:33.763  + 0.424   30
 8.  Glock        Toyota                (B)  1:33.764  + 0.425   37
 9.  Barrichello  Brawn-Mercedes        (B)  1:33.885  + 0.546   30
10.  Nakajima     Williams-Toyota       (B)  1:33.899  + 0.560   36
11.  Hamilton     McLaren-Mercedes      (B)  1:33.994  + 0.655   30
12.  Fisichella   Force India-Mercedes  (B)  1:34.025  + 0.686   23
13.  Buemi        Toro Rosso-Ferrari    (B)  1:34.127  + 0.788   37
14.  Bourdais     Toro Rosso-Ferrari    (B)  1:34.366  + 1.027   26
15.  Piquet       Renault               (B)  1:34.411  + 1.072   29
16.  Massa        Ferrari               (B)  1:34.564  + 1.225   34
17.  Kubica       BMW-Sauber            (B)  1:34.605  + 1.266   31
18.  Raikkonen    Ferrari               (B)  1:34.670  + 1.331   28
19.  Kovalainen   McLaren-Mercedes      (B)  1:34.764  + 1.425   35
20.  Heidfeld     BMW-Sauber            (B)  1:34.790  + 1.451   33

All Timing Unofficial