Alonso on Top at Silverstone - Day Two

Alonso, who needs just six more points to clinch the drivers' title, completed a massive tyre testing programme with his Renault, covering 111 laps.

After Alonso tested yesterday the new spec engine the team plan to use in Brazil, it was Giancarlo Fisichella's turn to work with the new unit.

The Italian was fourth quickest in the second R25 after covering 78 laps of the British circuit, finishing behind Red Bull's third driver Vitantonio Liuzzi and McLaren's tester Alexander Wurz.

Wurz, quickest on the first day of work, was the busiest man on track, completed 112 laps as he focused on long runs with the MP4-20 car. The Austrian worked alongside Pedro de la Rosa, who again drove the car fitted with next year's V8 engine.

The Spanish driver managed to cover 39 laps and was happy with the programme.

"The last two days of testing have gone well," he said. "There is obviously a big difference in power between the Mercedes-Benz V10 and the V8, but this can be adapted to by adjusting your driving style.

"We are currently on a steep learning and it is early days, but so far all is going well and we have a long winter testing programme to look forward to, to continue our development programme."

Ralf Schumacher took over from teammate Ricardo Zonta at the wheel of this year's Toyota TF105, while the team's test driver Olivier Panis worked with the revised TF105B the Japanese squad are hoping to race in the final races of the season.

Williams joined the test today with both Nico Rosberg and Antonio Pizzonia, the duo covering slightly over 100 laps between themselves as they concentrated mainly on set-up work.

Pizzonia escaped an accident when his car suffered a rear suspension failure at the Bridge corner.

"I was lucky I did not hit anything as I was already turning in for the next corner so I went off and ended up in the gravel," Pizzonia told Autosport-Atlas at the end of the day.

Rosberg also suffered from a lack of running.

"It was not so good today as we could not do as much running as we would have liked," Rosberg told Autosport-Atlas. "The Renault are doing a total of 200 laps between them, and we are only doing less than 100.

"I did some tyre testing which was good but hopefully I get more running tomorrow."

Japanese driver Sakon Yamamoto made his debut at the wheel of a Formula One car today, testing for the Jordan team as he prepares himself to drive the third car from the Silverstone-based squad at the Japanese Grand Prix next month.

Today's times:

Pos  Driver        Team            Tyres  Time     Laps
 1.  Alonso       Renault           (M)  1:17.615  111
 2.  Liuzzi       Red Bull-Cosworth (M)  1:17.665   83
 3.  Wurz         McLaren-Mercedes  (M)  1:17.673  112
 4.  Fisichella   Renault           (M)  1:18.018   78
 5.  R.Schumacher Toyota            (M)  1:18.517   75
 6.  Rosberg      Williams-BMW      (M)  1:18.614   60
 7.  Pizzonia     Williams-BMW      (M)  1:18.693   43
 8.  Klien        Red Bull-Cosworth (M)  1:18.727   96
 9.  Panis        Toyota            (M)  1:19.051   61 
10.  de la Rosa   McLaren-Mercedes  (M)  1:22.962   39 
11.  Yamamoto     Jordan-Toyota     (B)  1:23.502   71

All Timing Unofficial