McLaren’s Spanish reserve manage to rescue a worrying situation late in Friday’s second practice session for the Chinese Grand Prix after Toyota’s Ricardo Zonta threatened to steal his mantle.

An impressive result of 1:32.834 was enough to return his name to the top position and relegate Zonta (1:32.977) into second.

Kimi Raikkonen consolidated McLaren’s good form with a 1:34.092 for third.

Fernando Alonso was competitive in the first of the Renaults and managed a best time of 1:34.226 to finish in fourth.

Interestingly the Renault was the fastest car down Shanghai’s main straight by more than 10 kilometres per hour.

The team arrived in China with an updated engine and it appeared to pay early dividends.

Admittedly both Alonso and his teammate Giancarlo Fisichella ran low downforce setups, which saw them struggle to hold their cars at times through the session.

Fisichella spun in the morning run while Alonso went off twice in the afternoon.

Ferrari once again ran competitively with Rubens Barrichello finishing sixth fastest with a 1:34.618.

The Brazilian was subject of some sensationalist headlines after finishing second fastest in the morning but the team remain unlikely to seriously threaten the leaders on Sunday.

BAR and Toyota didn’t look like threats either. At BAR Jenson Button mounted a late recovery mission to finish ninth but for a majority of the hour both he and his teammate Takuma Sato sat well outside the top 10.

At Toyota Ricardo Zonta was obviously strong, however the Brazilian was at the wheel of the older TF105 machine.

His racing counterparts Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli – both in the new TF105B – seriously struggled for pace and finished the session in positions 18 and 19 respectively.