Schumacher holds sway at Sepang.

Michael Schumacher continued to defy conventional wisdom - and cause fear in the Michelin ranks - by topping the times in Saturday's free practice sessions for the Malaysian Grand Prix.

Despite track temperatures soaring as the morning wore on, the German and his Ferrari F2004 proved to be the class of the field. Unassailable in the first 45-minute session, Schumacher held sway by a massive eight-tenths of a second over Fernando Alonso, and managed to hold on to his position second time around, despite not improving his time and watching as the Williams-BMWs of brother Ralf and team-mate Juan Montoya edged ever closer.

At the end of the morning, however, Schumacher Sr continued to enjoy an advantage, albeit a much reduced one of 0.037secs over Montoya. The Williams driver, like the younger of the German siblings, had enjoyed a brief foray to the head of the times, but Ferrari always seemed to have a little in hand for its star, and Michael went back ahead of the field with five minutes of the session remaining.

The pace upped on day two - Schumacher's best lap of the morning, a 1min 33.391secs effort, was a full second clear of that set by Kimi Raikkonen on Friday - but the top ten all got to within a second of the benchmark this time around. Schumacher also proved that he was fallible, spinning the F2004 shortly after setting his best time in the opening session and running off the track in the second.

Montoya was the best of the rest on the day, with Ralf a further four-tenths adrift. Renault's Jarno Trulli also managed to get ahead of the second Ferrari, despite a somewhat wayward session, leading early on but running off the road at least twice. Barrichello, too, struggled to claim a place in the top five, clawing his way back from twelfth in the closing minutes.

The rest of the top ten was populated, as expected, by Michelin runners, with Jenson Button climbing to sixth, ahead of the two McLarens, Fernando Alonso and Mark Webber. Kimi Raikkonen proved to be the quicker of the two Mercedes runners, despite not completing a flying lap in the first session, and only using ten tours second time around. The Finn and team-mate David Coulthard were evenly matched, however, with less than two-hundredths between them at the end.

Alonso would be disappointed to have swapped second for ninth in the space of 45 minutes, but the Spaniard was one of only three drivers - the others being Schumacher and Zsolt Baumgartner - not to improve his time between sessions. He was only 0.013secs shy of Coulthard's eighth place, however.

Outside the top half of the order, Olivier Panis continued to fight what appeared to be a lone crusade for Toyota, as team-mate Cristiano da Matta again struggled for consistency. The Brazilian eventually wound up 16th overall - albeit comfortably ahead of 17th placed Nick Heidfeld - after two trips into the gravel.

Panis was hotly pursued by Felipe Massa, who again appeared to be on the edge of following da Matta's unconventional 'line', and Jaguar rookie Christian Klien, who picked up 1.2secs - and a couple of places - between sessions. The Austrian was the best of the three rookies by a long way, with Giorgio Pantano and Gianmaria Bruni both experiencing difficult sessions as they attempted to fine-tune their cars to the track conditions.

Pantano had a narrow escape in the first session, as he exceeded his limits and spun just as one of the two Williams-BMWs came haring through, while Bruni also ran out of road, but, like his Italian counterpart, was able to continue. Less than half a second separated the two countrymen by the end of the morning.