Alonso finished the session some 0.191 seconds behind, as Renault took on a low-fuel strategy for the final section of the practice. Combined with super-soft tires, the revised Renault R29 had no problem finishing second overall.
As compared to the first practice session, Toyota's Jarno Trulli powered to 3rd overall, while followed by the Red Bull Racing duo Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber. Brawn GP's Jenson Button dropped a place in the practice classification, finishing 6th overall. Nevertheless, the Top 6 drivers all ran inside 0.355 seconds, showing the immense equilibrium of their 2009 challengers ahead of the Saturday qualifying.
Lewis Hamilton, winner of the 1st practice session on Friday, went on to finish 0.655 seconds off the pace, despite the new changes implemented by McLaren for the Bahrain weekend. His time was only good for 11th place overall, while teammate Heikki Kovalainen had to settle for the penultimate place, 1.425 seconds behind Rosberg.
Ferrari had another disappointing outing on Friday, with both Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa failing to make the Top 15. Despite using the Kinetic Energy Recovery System, Massa could only record the 16th best time of the day, while the Finnish driver had to settle for 18th place (both more than 1.2 seconds off the pace, though).
BMW duo went on a completely opposite direction as compared to the first practice – then they finished 2nd and 3rd overall – as Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld only scored the 17th and 20th best times respectively.
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