Free Practice 2: Trulli causes a stir

Trulli had finished the first session tucked behind the Ferraris of Rubens Barrichello and Michael Schumacher, but finished the second hour just 0.073s ahead of Schumacher, with Barrichello a mere two thousandths of a second further back.

"I had a good day," said Trulli. "It was my first totally trouble free session in a long time and I just hope I have a similar day tomorrow and not a repeat of Melbourne [where he qualified seventh after being second quickest on Friday].

"I am confident that every time I step into the car I can push to 100 percent. I am also satisfied because we don't appear to be too far from McLaren and Ferrari, which is good progress," he added.

On a track surface that had slicked up since the morning session, Schumacher had a pair of grassy moments which aborted his two potentially fastest laps, while Mika Hakkinen spun on a theoretical flyer, but the top times still remain nearly 1.5s away from last year's pole mark.

Air temperatures reached 34 degrees C in the early afternoon, with track temperatures soaring to nearly 50 degrees, but Michelin fared well in its first ultra-high heat head-to-head with Bridgestone: Eddie Irvine's Jaguar finished fifth overall, only 0.220s off David Coulthard's fourth-placed McLaren-Mercedes and 0.341s ahead of Hakkinen's.

Trulli's team mate Heinz-Harald Frentzen started his session with a pit lane altercation with Peter Sauber, who was still fuming over comments the German had made regarding the performance of his cars in Australia, and ended it with seventh overall.

In his own website, Frentzen had questioned why the Saubers were so good at accelarating out of slow corners - and why they misfired as they did it... Shrugging and verbalising ensued, but the Swiss was gently pulled away by team boss Eddie Jordan.

Eighth-placed Luciano Burti made it two Jaguars in the top 10, with Ralf Schumacher's Williams-BMW putting three Michelin-shod cars in it. They were split by Olivier Panis, best of the BAR-Hondas in ninth.

Jacques Villeneuve was 11th for BAR, with Nick Heidfeld best of the Saubers in 12th.

Benetton improved slightly, taking 13th with Giancarlo Fisichella and 17th with Jenson Button, while Arrows managed to get its cars out on track for the bulk of the session and took 15th and 18th with Jos Verstappen and Enrique Bernoldi respectively.

Juan Pablo Montoya looks like he'll be putting in an intensive evening on the PlayStation after still failing to set a representative lap time. The Colombian ventured out onto the circuit four times, but in each case bar one, he returned to the pits without tripping the beams. On his one complete lap, the Williams set a time of 2m13.188s - over 34s off the pace.

Reality struck for Minardi in the second session, with Tarso Marques blowing an engine and the duo sitting 20th and 21st on the time sheets.

Tomorrow (Saturday) sees two more 45-minute free practice sessions before the all-important sigle hour of qualifying in the afternoon.

Click here for the practice session 2 results.