Raikkonen fastest on wet second day

Rain showers for most of the day meant that there was little valuable information to be gleaned on the new developments the teams were trying - and world champion Fernando Alonso proved as much by completing just one installation lap in the afternoon before calling it a day.

Raikkonen stuck with it, though, completing 54 laps before a spin at Turn 3 in the afternoon led to him running off the track and into the barriers.

There was no major damage to the car, but the Finn seemed keen on not getting too wet by running to a marshal's hut after getting out of the car and waiting there until rescue crews arrived to retrieve his stricken car.

Mark Webber managed to get some valuable running of Red Bull Racing's seamless shift gearbox to set the second quickest time - albeit 1.5 seconds slower than Raikkonen - with Renault's Heikki Kovalainen third fastest overall.

The Finn stayed positive and made the most of the opportunity to get some wet weather mileage.

"Personally, I tried to use every lap to improve something: trying a new line, or pushing the braking points a bit further," said Kovalainen.

"The track was changing all the time, and we were able to run the wet and extreme wet tyres today. To be honest, I enjoy driving in the wet, it's different to normal and good fun for the drivers."

Nick Heidfeld showed that BMW Sauber are as quick in the wet as they are in the dry to set the fourth quickest time, while fifth fastest Nico Rosberg managed to complete 45 laps after Williams successfully repaired his car following Kazuki Nakajima's big accident on Monday.

Spyker had also had a busy night, working hard to repair the damage caused by Adrian Valles' accident at Turn 3 on Monday afternoon. Adrian Sutil took over driving duties, but completed only 11 laps with the team keen to not suffer any further mishaps in the tricky conditions.

Thanks to the wet weather the test has been extended until Thursday, as autosport.com predicted yesterday, although Spyker have already confirmed that they will not remain beyond tomorrow.

Today's times:

Pos  Driver       Make                     Time      Laps
 1.  Raikkonen    Ferrari             (B)  1:30.280  54
 2.  Webber       Red Bull-Renault    (B)  1:31.752  39
 3.  Kovalainen   Renault             (B)  1:32.149  53
 4.  Heidfeld     BMW Sauber          (B)  1:32.175  17
 5.  Rosberg      Williams-Toyota     (B)  1:32.580  45
 6.  Barrichello  Honda               (B)  1:32.911  44
 7.  Trulli       Toyota              (B)  1:32.943  21
 8.  Sato         Super Aguri-Honda   (B)  1:33.238  40
 9.  Liuzzi       Toro Rosso-Ferrari  (B)  1:33.323  38
10.  Sutil        Spyker-Ferrari      (B)  1:35.488  11
11.  Speed        Toro Rosso-Ferrari  (B)  1:39.560  7
12.  Alonso       McLaren-Mercedes    (B)  2:04.818  1