The times suggest Sunday's third-last leg of the 2006 season will be a cracking race as Alonso tries to hang on to his two-point advantage over Schumacher in the drivers' championship.

Massa was the fastest race driver in Friday's practice, beating Schumacher by less than a tenth of a second to finish fourth overall behind test drivers Alexander Wurz (Williams), Sebastian Vettel (BMW Sauber) and Anthony Davidson (Honda).

However, the Brazilian has incurred a grid penalty after his team opted to change the engine on his car, meaning he will drop 10 places on his qualifying position for the start of Sunday's race.

The penalty has huge implications for Schumacher's title aspirations as Massa will be unlikely to provide any assistance to his team-mate.

But the German ace may not need Massa's help as he was able to clock the next fastest lap time of 1 minute 36.641 seconds at the 5.4 kilometre Shanghai International Circuit, just ahead of Alonso who registered 1.35.739.

The Spaniard, who did not take part in Friday morning's first practice session, said people should not read too much in the day's results which was held in drizzly overcast conditions.

"I think we need to be a bit cautious analysing the times, because the conditions today are quite different to what we expect for the race," said Alonso on F1.com.

"So we will wait for tomorrow until we get a final judgement for the tyre performance, but so far the Michelins seem to be working well."

Australian Mark Webber, who also made his first appearance on the circuit in the afternoon session, was hampered by a hydraulic fluid leak early into his run, but still managed to register the 13th fastest time of the session.

"It was obviously a pretty short day for me," said Webber. "It didn't really cost us a huge amount and we still have plenty of work to do tonight to check how we can improve for tomorrow.

"The drizzly weather today also meant the track wasn't in its best condition, so I'm quite happy to pick up some additional running tomorrow."

Results of second practice session for the Chinese Grand Prix
1. Alexander Wurz (Williams) 1:35.539
2. Sebastian Vettel (Sauber) 1:35.579
3. Anthony Davidson (Honda) 1:35.714
4. Felipe Massa (Ferrari)1:36.599
5. Michael Schumacher (Ferrari) 1:36.641
6. Fernando Alonso (Renault) 1:36.739
7. Franck Montagny (Super Aguri) 1:37.278
8. Michael Ammermuller (Red Bull) 1:37.678
9. Tiago Monteiro (MF1) 1:37.698
10. Giancarlo Fisichella (Renault) 1:37.718
13. Mark Webber (Williams) 1:38.045

(Sportal)