McLaren's Lewis Hamilton got the better of Ferrari again. Ferrari had dominated both Friday’s official practice sessions for the Malaysian Grand Prix before Hamilton — winner in the season-opening Australian GP last weekend — took advantage of cooling track temperatures under clouding skies to set the day’s best lap of 1 minute, 35.055 seconds in a late run at Sepang.He was 0.151 seconds ahead of Ferrari’s Felipe Massa in session two, with world champ Kimi Raikonnen third quickest, another two-tenths of a second behind.The surprises of Friday’s second session were Honda’s Jenson Button, Toro Rosso’s Sebastian Vettel and Toyota’s Jarno Trulli, who filled fourth, fifth and sixth on the time sheets respectively. “I am pretty happy with today’s results as the car showed consistent pace throughout and good overall speed,” Hamilton said, adding that he had a gear-shift problem in the opening session.Rain on wayNorbert Haug, motorsport boss for McLaren engine supplier Mercedes, said the forecast of rain for Saturday qualifying and Sunday’s race could render Friday’s dry running redundant, “but we should be well equipped in those circumstances too”.Hamilton’s late lap could have been disheartening for Ferrari, with the team aiming to rebound from a dismal season start at last week’s Australian GP where they collected just one point.But Ferrari aren’t losing confidence just yet. It could take satisfaction from the reliability of their cars after the mechanical failures in Melbourne. Raikkonen coasted to a standstill in the first practice session, but the team blamed that on a miscalculation on fuel rather than a recurrence of the fuel feed malfunction.Massa said only being stuck behind a slowing Hamilton on Friday just when he was using his set of soft tires prevented him from going quicker.Safety concernsDavid Coulthard took no part in the second practice session after an accident serious enough to have race stewards questioning whether his Red Bull car is safe.Coulthard ran wide at a corner, drove across the grass and attempted to rejoin, but the action of going over a curb snapped the front two wheels off his car and he slid into a gravel trap. That in itself would not warrant investigation, but one of the wheels came loose from its tethers and totally separated from the chassis. Stewards demanded Red Bull provide “a report verifying that the integrity of the suspension is such that the car should not be deemed of dangerous constructions.”
