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Buemi Dominates 2nd Day at Jerez

Sebastien Buemi made another successful appearance during the Jerez testing this week, topping the second day of the meeting with the time of 1:18.073. The Swiss driver seems to make the most of the chance given to him by the Toro Rosso outfit, as he previously set the quickest time of the day on Tuesday.

Toro Rosso ended the second day running with both its drivers leading the overall pack. Buemi was followed on the timing sheets by potential 2009 teammate Takuma Sato, who recorded a time more than half-a-second slower than Buemi's. Third overall was current Toro Rosso racing driver Sebastien Bourdais. The trio is fighting for the two racing spots available with the Scuderia for the 2009 season.

McLaren Mercedes was the team to clinch 2nd spot in the testing session – just like in Day 1 – with Pedro de la Rosa hitting the track on the newly-developed MP4-23A car that featured a new wing design. The Woking-based team also tested the KERS-powered car on Wednesday, driven by Finland's Heikki Kovalainen. The McLaren racing driver clocked the 6th best time of the day, being one of the 4 drivers to finish the session within one minute and 20 seconds.

Double world champion Fernando Alonso also joined the pack – for the first time following the season finale, in Brazil – and finished the day with a time of 1:19.907. He used most of his laps to get used to the new slick tires and made a short visit off track, causing the first (and only) red flag of the day.

“It was a good day and I'm happy to be back in the car. Unfortunately I damaged the car a little bit in the morning and so we lost some running, but the team did a good job to repair the car quickly and I was able to run almost all of the afternoon without any problems. It was nice to run on the slick tires as they are more grippy, but when you lose the downforce from the car they don't feel massively different to grooved tires,” said Alonso after his maiden testing session in the off season.

Ferrari continued to work on their endurance testing, while also covering some details on car's setup. Kimi Raikkonen - 5th best time of the day – was joined in by teammate Felipe Massa in the second part of the testing session, as the Brazilian had to settle for 10th overall on the timing sheets. In the meantime, both BMW drivers – Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica – ended the second day of the Jerez testing in the back of the pack, recording the 9th and 11th best times respectively.
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