Neither he nor Wurz will race on Sunday.

Alonso, who last year became Formula One's youngest champion, has a new and more powerful unit in China after a failure at Monza three weeks ago.

"I am very confident, as always," the Spaniard had told reporters earlier.

"I think that for the last three races we should be very competitive... the car is really at maximum performance now, with no problems.

"We should be very quick. Now it is up to us and Ferrari to decide who is quickest."

McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen, who takes over from Schumacher at Ferrari next year, had a spin in the morning and ended the second session in 21st place.

"We intended to do the minimum amount of running as usual on a Friday to conserve our engines and the Michelin tyres," said team boss Ron Dennis.

"We waited a little too long for the track surface to clean up, which resulted in both drivers being hampered by the damp track conditions."

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