By Luke Marc Carlile-Stanton
September 20 2006

Frenchman Franck Montagny finished 4th for Toyota and Ralf Schumacher 7th on Day 2 of the Silverstone test at the Northamptonshire circuit in Great Britain.

Montagny still not a confirmed Toyota test driver was making his second outing for the team at Silverstone and finished an impressive fourth on a time of 1.20.616. Ricardo Zonta complained of feeling ill and went home yesterday and was replaced by race driver Ralf Schumacher, the Germans best time a 1.21.130. Jarno Trulli is not competing at Silverstone this weekend after being sent to Japan for a promotional event.

Meanwhile in only his second appearance for Renault F1 before he becomes the teams test driver next season, Nelson Piquet Jnr topped the time sheets. The GP2 runner up beat current Renault tester and 2007 race driver Heikki Kovalinen. Kovalinen having to settle for second place. Pedro De La Rosa was third for Mclaren ahead of Montagny and Williams third man Alex Wurz was 5th. Williams' other test driver Narain Karthikeyan continued to test the Toyota engine in the back of the Williams in preperation for next season when Williams switch from Cosworth to Toyota power. The Indian finished the day 10th after a few more teething troubles with running the Toyota engine for the first time.

GP2 Champion Lewis Hamilton had is first proper test for Mclaren Mercedes. The Briton finished the day 6th on a best time of 1.20.864, a good effort by the man tipped to be Fernando Alonso's team mate next season. He finished ahead of Ralf while Takuma Sato joined team mate Sakon Yamamoto at Super Aguri for the second day, he finished a good 8th whilst team mate Yamamoto was 11th and last on only his second visit to Silverstone.

Sypker MF1 Continued giving young drivers their first F1 try outs. Formula Nippon champion, Italian Ronnie Quintarelli finished 10th whilst Lewis Hamilton's GP2 team mate Frenchman, Alexandre Premat completed a shakedown with Sypker-MF1 before he takes over the third driver duties at the Chinesse Grand Prix next weekend, the position was widely tipped to be taken by outsted Red Bull driver Christian Klien but talks have appeared to come to a halt.

Silverstone testing times-Day 2, 20th September 2006.
1 N. Piquet JR. (BRA) Renault 01:19.565 73 laps
2 H. Kovalainen (FIN) Renault 01:19.700 119
3 P. de la Rosa (ESP) McLaren Mercedes 01:19.921 110
4 F. Montagny (FRA) Toyota 01:20.616 87
5 A. Wurz (AUT) Williams Cosworth 01:20.822 68
6 L. Hamilton (GBR) McLaren 01:20.864 64
7 R. Schumacher (D) Toyota 01:21.130 55
8 T. Sato (JPN) Super Aguri 01:21.981 39
9 R. Quintarelli (ITA) Spyker MF1 01:23.206 84
10 N. Karthikeyan (IND) Williams Toyota 01:24.031 39
11 S. Yamamoto (JPN) Super Aguri-Honda 01:24.839 26