Friday, June 20 2008 --

It was the ideal setting for Fernando Alonso who set the fastest time in Friday afternoon's practice session. It was Renault's home Grand Prix at Magny-Cours and the Spaniard ran a fresh V8 after the morning's engine failure. In the last hour and a half, the Spaniard went berzerk in the overcast conditions. His clock stopped at 1'15.778s.

Alonso out-drove the Ferrari of Felipe Massa who had a flamboyant afternoon that saw him run off the tracks, twice, in grand fashion. He finished with a best time of 1'15.854s, just ahead of his team mate, Kimi Raikkonen at 1'15.999s. Lewis Hamilton went out with a mindset to explore the limits of the grip on the track and finished fourth with 1'16.232s while the Toro Rosso of Sebastian Vettel came in at an amazing fifth best time of 1'16.298s.

Hot on their trail was Robert Kubica, who ran his BMW Sauber in 1'16.317s around the track for a sixth place, while McLaren's Heikki Kovalainen, another driver who went off the track, came in at seventh on 1'16.340s. Nick Heidfeld took eighth for BMW Sauber with 1'16.458s, ahead of Renault's Nelson Piquet (1'16.543s); Red Bull's David Coulthard (1'16.572s); Williams' Nico Rosberg (1'16.682s); Toyota's Jarno Trulli (1'16.743s) and Toro Rosso's Sebastien Bourdais (1'16.758s).

Kazuki Nakajima just failed to break into the 1'16s bracket, with 1'17.002s for Williams, which was fractionally quicker than Timo Glock's 1'17.092s for Toyota. Red Bull's Mark Webber was 16th on 1'17.106s, followed by Jenson Button (1'17.244s) in the Honda; the Force India of Giancarlo Fisichella (1'17.394s); Honda's Rubens Barrichello (1'17.591s) and Adrian Sutil (1'17.868s) in the second Force India car.

The practice session was followed by the FIA's test to validate the new Car Safety software that has become mandatory for all manufacturers to install onto their machines. Once each car had crossed the line at the end of the second practice session, and had taken the chequered flag, all marshall posts displayed the yellow flags and Safety Car (SC) boards. Yellow lights on the cars were illuminated and a message 'Safety Car Deployed' flashed across the timing display monitors. Drivers were required to switch to the 'Safety Car Mode' within five seconds of the display and proceed to the pits. This feature does not take into account the track position of each driver and expects all to be in the pits at their first opportunity. The test was claimed to have been successfully administered.