Free practice 2: HHF second fastest!

Frentzen was just seven hundredths of a second away from the Ferrari's best lap, while his team-mate Enrique Bernoldi also got into the groove by going sixth. Their performances continue the recent trend of Arrows going quickly on the opening day of a GP.

Jenson Button's run of strong form looks set to continue in Barcelona. The 22-year-old was third fastest in his Renault, pushing Rubens Barrichello down to fourth. The Brazilian failed to improve on his first session time in his Ferrari.

Bridgestone's teams appear to be benefiting from the cool temperatures. Only three Michelin-shod cars managed to get into the top 10.

One Bridgestone team to enjoy an encouraging start to the weekend was British American Racing, thanks to Olivier Panis going fifth. Kimi Raikkonen was the best of the McLarens in seventh, while team-mate David Coulthard was a lowly 13th.

But that was better than the Williams pair. Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya were strangely off the pace all day and ended up just 15th and 17th.

Eddie Irvine improved the performance of his Jaguar to rise to 11th, while Takuma Sato managed to get some laps under his belt following his Jordan's failure at the start of the first session. The Japanese managed 20 laps in total and was 14th fastest by the end.

One note of interest. Four-time world champion Alain Prost, whose eponymous team went out of business before the start of the season, is a visitor in the paddock this weekend. He was spotted in the Ferrari garage, talking to his former driver Luciano Burti who now has a testing role at the Italian team.

For full practice session 2 results, click here.