Imola, day 2: Durango fly in Italy

The Brazilian was a huge 0.4secs quicker than his nearest rival, Super Nova's Sebastien Bourdais. Without the wet track which characterised yesterday's morning session, today proved the fastest of the test. Most set their quickest times before lunch.

But Bourdais reckoned there was more time in his car during the afternoon. "I could have been quicker, but I couldn't go out because of a brake balance problem," he said. "The time doesn't matter too much as it's only a test and qualifying or a race."

Arden pair Tomas Enge and Bjorn Wirdheim were third and fourth, leaving team boss Christian Horner satisfied. "We're looking in good shape," he said. "Bjorn was particularly impressive, given that this was his first time at Imola. This is very encouraging."

New team PSM suffered the only major accident of the day. Tony Schmidt crashed heavily when he put a wheel in the dirt and damaged his car badly. He escaped injury and the team are confident that they will be able to rebuild the Lola before next week's final pre-season test at Silverstone.

Rodrigo Sperafico Durango 1m36.879s
Sebastien Bourdais Super Nova 1m37.244s
Tomas Enge Arden 1m37.356s
Bjorn Wirdheim Arden 1m37.462s
Ricardo Sperafico Petrobras 1m37.480s
Antonio Pizzonia Petrobras 1m37.584s
Mario Haberfeld Astromega 1m37.623s
Enrico Toccacelo Coloni 1m37.775s
Patrick Friesacher Red Bull 1m37.791s
Ricardo Mauricio Red Bull 1m37.951s
Alex Muller Durango 1m38.048s
Rob Nguyen Astromega 1m38.402s
Tony Schmidt PSM 1m38.544s
Ryan Briscoe Nordic 1m38.604s
Zsolt Baumgartner Nordic 1m38.791s
Tiago Monteiro Super Nova 1m38.921s
Nicolas Kiesa PSM 1m39.267s
Dominick Schwager Coloni 1m40.130s