The Ferrari driver waited until halfway through the session, which until that point had been fought out between Renault and WilliamsF1, and with his first flying lap of the morning, set the quickest lap time recorded so far this weekend.

Schumacher attempted another run late in the session but spun at one of Sepang's tight hairpins before abandoning his lap.

Alonso established himself in second with a late flier, having spent the majority of the session slower than Renault's team-mate Jarno Trulli. The French team however has clearly made progress overnight.

Ralf Schumacher was third fastest. His time of 1m34.239s was the benchmark until his brother's mid-session blinder, and the German only dropped another place right near the end of the 45 minutes. Nevertheless he remains ahead of WilliamsF1 team-mate Montoya who was seventh.

Ferrari's Rubens Barrichello had a quiet session on his way to fourth place ahead of David Coulthard and Trulli.

Jaguar's Mark Webber, BAR's Jenson Button and Sauber's Giancarlo Fisichella rounded out the top ten, while yesterday's fastest runner Kimi Raikkonen failed to record a lap time despite two installation runs.