The Michelin runners looked decidedly more competitive than they had this morning with Ralf Schumacher's WilliamsF1 BMW and Mark Webber's Jaguar finishing the session second and third fastest. Michael Schumacher, quickest by far this morning, was fourth in his Bridgestone-shod Ferrari.

Interestingly though, the Ferrari drivers were more than half a second away from the pace that they set this morning, which suggests they opted to run the harder of the two Bridgestone compounds this afternoon for comparison before the team makes its tyre selection for the weekend. Indeed Schumacher completed 22 laps and Rubens Barrichello (tenth quickest) 19 laps, as they put in several long runs.

The Michelin runners on the other hand, and Ralf in particular, have closed right in on Schumacher's initial morning benchmark, while Raikkonen set his best time of 1m34.395s when the track was at its hottest – 53 degrees centigrade.

BAR-Honda test driver Anthony Davidson set the early pace as several cars hit the track when the pitlane opened. But the Englishman stopped at the final corner before ten minutes of the session had been completed with his car smoking, placing him 17th on the time sheet.

Raikkonen's fastest time came with ten minutes to go, but until then Ralf Schumacher had been quickest. Both he and WilliamsF1 team-mate Juan Pablo Montoya looked happier with their FW26 machines this afternoon. The Colombian ended up fifth fastest after a spell at the top of times mid-session.

Jarno Trulli was sixth fastest for Renault ahead of Felipe Massa who made up for his morning off by going seventh fastest in the Sauber-Petronas. Trulli's team-mate Alonso was eighth, although the Spaniard also spent some time at the top of the list early in the hour.

David Coulthard was ninth and looked nothing like as confident in his MP4-19 as team-mate Raikkonen did. The Scot had a spin and seemed to be fighting a persistent oversteer problem throughout the session. Fellow Briton Jenson Button had a quiet session on his way to 11th ahead of Toyota driver Olivier Panis who in turn spent the hour fighting it out with team-mate and test driver Ricardo Zonta.

Webber's Jaguar team-mate Christian Klein was 14th and ended the day over 0.9s shy of the Australian, his car looking twitchy through the two switchback sections of the Sepang track. BAR's Takumo Sato was right behind him, the Japanese having had another eventful session in which he clouted the barrier and ripped the front wing off his 006 after losing it under braking.

Sauber's Giancarlo Fisichella was 16th ahead of Davidson, Bjorn Wirdheim and Cristiano da Matta who spun off into the gravel early on.

Jordan's Nick Heidfeld was the fastest of the customer Cosworth-engined runners with Gianmaria Bruni's Minardi just a tenth slower in 21st place. Zsolt Baumgartner was 22nd ahead of Timo Glock, Giorgio Pantano and Bas Leinders – seven seconds off the pace.