Honda's Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button were eleventh and twelfth, split by a whisker, less than one hundredth between them in the highly disappointing RA106.

Takuma Sato trailed both factory cars, but not by much in his Super Aguri-machine. The Japanese driver was just two thousandths slower than Button.

After the Honda cars, Nick Heidfeld was 14th, half a second or so off Kubica in the other BMW Sauber F1.07. Nick had been third in FP1, but tumbled down the order in the second session.

Alex Wurz and Vitantonio Liuzzi came in 15th and 16th, while Heikki Kovalainen was 17th. Kovalainen's best effort was a 1m 18.086s lap, 2 seconds behind Fisichella.

Of the rest, Scott Speed was 18th, followed by Davidson and Schumacher, both mentioned earlier and then the Spyker F1's of Christijan Albers and Adrian Sutil. Both Spyker drivers improved this afternoon but were still some way behind, the gap between Sutil and Alonso over 3 seconds.

There is now the usual break in the build up to the Monaco Grand Prix, with Friday a 'rest' day for the F1 folk. Normal service resumes on Saturday and Sunday, with qualifying and the race.