Alonso leads practice

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Alonso produced the fastest practice time of the day ahead of this weekend's Belgian Grand Prix, narrowly edging out McLaren team-mate Lewis Hamilton.

The Spaniard posted a lap time for the seven kilometre track - the longest on the Formula One calendar - of one minute 46.654secs and Hamilton was just over a tenth of a second adrift, with Ferrari's Felipe Massa third quickest ahead of team-mate Kimi Raikkonen.

That was an improvement for Massa on his first session which ended after just two laps as he appeared late on the brakes coming out of Malmedy and into Rivage.

That led to the Brazilian, seemingly out of the title race as he trails Hamilton by 23 points, trundling across the gravel.

Massa managed to bring his car to a halt just as the left corner of his front wing touched a wall.

Raikkonen was quickest in the morning 90-minute run with a time of 1:47.339, at least proving he was again fully fit after his 200mph smash in practice last Saturday ahead of the Italian Grand Prix.

The Finn then drove in the race with severe neck pain, ultimately finishing a fine third behind a McLaren one-two spearheaded by Alonso.

The Ferraris, though, will have to show considerable improvement tomorrow if they are to avoid another humbling experience as happened on their home circuit of Monza.

In the afternoon, Toyota's Jarno Trulli set the fifth best time and was within a second of Alonso.