Alonso fastest again in second practice

Practice was stopped for more than 10 of the last 15 minutes because some spectators were climbing the safety fence at Turn 8. A frustration for the drivers who had waited all day for a dry track.

Once waved out, the drivers then had to wait at the end of the pitlane as the light appeared to get stuck on red and more precious time was lost before they were finally allowed onto the track - with less than three minutes to go.

Ferrari's Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa had managed to get to the front of that queue, giving themselves a distinct advantage for what was a last-dash flier.

Behind Alonso and Sutil, Lewis Hamilton ended the day third fastest ahead of Robert Kubica, Massa and Sebastian Vettel.

Jenson Button was seventh quickest, Pedro de la Rosa eighth, Rubens Barrichello ninth and Kamui Kobayashi made it two Saubers in the top 10.

The session began with the track damp but it dried steadily through the 90 minutes, bar a very brief shower at the beginning which caught out Timo Glock and Vitantonio Liuzzi.

The Italian went off at Rivage and was able to bring his Force India back to the pits for a front wing replacement, but the Virgin driver's day was run after he thumped the barrier sideways at Turn 9.

It was one of those practices where things changed frequently, including the temperature, track conditions, time order and even the colour of the sky - thus it depended when you were out as to who was quickest.

Alonso had made the first impact on the times when he switched to intermediates early on. Not long after that, team-mate Massa shaved off a couple of seconds to lap in 1m58.311s. Michael Schumacher meanwhile proved that opposite lock is possible through the compression at the damp Eau Rouge.

Twenty minutes later, Jaime Alguersuari became the first person to go to a set of hard slicks, and then very quickly the times began to tumble significantly. Then, frankly, the form was dictated by when drivers were on track as the dry line became more pronounced.

Button's stint gave him control, for example, only for Hamilton to go to the top with a 1m49.248s, and then Sutil - who had been consistently impressive all day - moved ahead of them all with a 1m49.157s. And that's where he remained until the red flag came out with 15 minutes to go.

Pos Driver              Team                  Time       Gap   Laps
 1. Fernando Alonso     Ferrari               1m49.032s          25
 2. Adrian Sutil        Force India-Mercedes  1m49.157s  +0.125  17
 3. Lewis Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes      1m49.248s  +0.216  14
 4. Robert Kubica       Renault               1m49.282s  +0.250  20
 5. Felipe Massa        Ferrari               1m49.588s  +0.556  23
 6. Sebastian Vettel    Red Bull-Renault      1m49.689s  +0.657  19
 7. Jenson Button       McLaren-Mercedes      1m49.755s  +0.723  20
 8. Pedro de la Rosa    Sauber-Ferrari        1m50.081s  +1.049  27
 9. Rubens Barrichello  Williams-Cosworth     1m50.128s  +1.096  22
10. Kamui Kobayashi     Sauber-Ferrari        1m50.200s  +1.168  24
11. Vitaly Petrov       Renault               1m50.251s  +1.219  24
12. Michael Schumacher  Mercedes              1m50.341s  +1.309  23
13. Nico Rosberg        Mercedes              1m50.382s  +1.350  21
14. Jaime Alguersuari   Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m50.682s  +1.650  25
15. Nico Hulkenberg     Williams-Cosworth     1m50.831s  +1.799  20
16. Vitantonio Liuzzi   Force India-Mercedes  1m51.520s  +2.488  17
17. Sebastien Buemi     Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m51.523s  +2.491  25
18. Mark Webber         Red Bull-Renault      1m51.636s  +2.604  19
19. Heikki Kovalainen   Lotus-Cosworth        1m53.480s  +4.448  15
20. Jarno Trulli        Lotus-Cosworth        1m53.639s  +4.607  21
21. Lucas di Grassi     Virgin-Cosworth       1m54.325s  +5.293  17
22. Bruno Senna         HRT-Cosworth          1m55.751s  +6.719  24
23. Sakon Yamamoto      HRT-Cosworth          1m56.039s  +7.007  21
24. Timo Glock          Virgin-Cosworth       2m03.179s +14.147   3