VALENCIA, Aug 22: Ferrari’s world champion Kimi Raikkonen lapped fastest on Friday in free practice for Sunday’s European Grand Prix at Formula One’s newest street circuit.

The 28-year-old Finn delivered a best lap of one minute and 39.477 seconds in the final five seconds of the afternoon session to outpace local hero Fernando Alonso in a Renault.

Briton Jenson Button was third for Honda ahead of Brazilian Felipe Massa in the second Ferrari at the end of a session that saw all the fastest times clocked in the final eight minutes.

Championship leading Briton Lewis Hamilton was fifth fastest in his McLaren Mercedes ahead of Finnish team-mate Heiki Kovalainen, who was sixth. German Timo Glock surprised by also producing a late fast lap for seventh place in his Toyota with only seven drivers breaking the 1:40 barrier on the new 5.42-km track built around the Mediterranean port of Valencia in eastern Spain.

Double world champion Alonso looked to have timed his run to perfection to wreck the Ferraris’ day but was outdone by Raikkonen in dramatic fashion.

The Spaniard, who led a minute’s silence after the morning session in respect for those who lost their lives in Wednesday’s Madrid airport crash, was impressively quick in the afternoon.

German Sebastian Vettel, 21, who was fastest for Toro Rosso in the first practice, was unable to repeat the feat in the afternoon.

By the start of the afternoon session, the air temperature had risen to 31 degrees Celsius and the track temperature was 44 degrees on a humid and sultry day.

Hamilton was swiftly out on to the track to show he meant business and clocked an early fastest time that was better than his best lap in the morning, but he and his McLaren team-mate Finn Heikki Kovalainen were soon overhauled by the Ferraris.

Raikkonen and then Massa swept to the top of the time-boards followed by Poland’s Robert Kubica, in his BMW Sauber, and Germany’s Nico Rosberg for Williams.

Nearly all of the drivers pushed harder than they had in the morning and most were forced to run wide as they worked for faster times.

None however ended up in the barriers in the first hour of the afternoon session.

Raikkonen, who said he would concentrate harder on his qualifying performance in order to help protect his championship challenge, was as good as his word with a series of quick laps.

With 20 minutes remaining, he and Massa were split by only two-hundredths of a second at the top of the standings and they were the first men to break the 1:40 barrier before being joined by Toyota’s Glock.—Reuters