MONACO, May 22, 2008 (AFP) - Briton Lewis Hamilton dominated Thursday´s second practice session for Sunday´s Monaco Grand Prix.

Hamilton´s time in the afternoon session was the quickest of the day and gave the McLaren driver major encouragement for Sunday´s 66th running of the showpiece event.

Hamilton dominated the practice early on before Williams driver Nico Rosberg of Germany switched to softer tyres midway through the session and recorded a time of 1:15.533 eclipsing Hamilton momentarily.

Rosberg was quickest for ten minutes before Hamilton also switched to softer Bridgestone rubber and posted a time of 1:15.140, beating the Williams´ time by almost four tenths of a second.

Rosberg was able to hang on to second place ahead of Ferrari duo, defending champion Finn Kimi Raikkonen and Brazilian Felipe Massa, with Heikki Kovalainen of Finland fifth in the second McLaren.

Renault driver Fernando Alonso of Spain managed to finish seventh despite damaging his car at Saint Devote. The Spaniard span off damaging the suspension and rear wing but was able limp to the pits, and still posted the seventh best time.

In the first practice run, Raikkonen edged Hamilton to the fastest time.

In a session interrupted by a long red flag to attend to a loose drain cover, Hamilton had been quickest prior to the interruption, having lapped in 1:17.078 early on. He then improved the benchmark to 1:16.216 shortly after the session was restarted.

But with nine minutes to go, he was usurped by Raikkonen, as the Ferrari driver produced a 1:15.948 to beat Hamilton by 0.268 seconds.

Those times stood as neither driver managed a clear lap on their last runs.

Kovalainen beat Raikkonen´s initial sector times in the second McLaren, but could not sustain the advantage around the final part of the lap and ended up third.