Juan Pablo fifth while Ralf damages his car

For the BMW WilliamsF1 team the opening Friday practice would see Juan Pablo fifth, while team-mate Ralf Schumacher would only be seventeenth after crashing his car.

The opening practice would see both Juan Pablo and Ralf move into their well practiced Friday routine. Both drivers would complete their installation lap and both would return to the pits where they would climb out of their cars.

The session would see the track too dry for wets but with damp patches. Despite this dry tyres would be the tyres fitted by all the teams as the session progressed. Ralf would go out first on dry tyres, followed by Juan Pablo.

Ralf would complete his first lap but he would spin onto the grass on his next lap at turn eight, but he would continue on as he did not hit anything. While this was happening Ralf would see his team-mate Juan Pablo set the fastest lap early in the session. Both BMW WilliamsF1 Team drivers would return to the pits as Michael Schumacher would take to the track to set a time of 1m:15.188, which would se him go fastest.

Michael would be joined by Barrichello but the Brazilian driver would have a major accident when he would hit the wall at one of the fastest parts of the track, the banked corner which is part of the oval. Barrichello was able to get out of his car uninjured and walk back to the pits. It would appear that Barrichello had a flat tyre before he hit the wall. WilliamsF1 Technical Director Patrick Head would have a quick chat with Barrichello and tells him what he had seen of the accident.

Barrichello would comment on the accident by saying: “Something broke and I spin."

Barrichello's accident would bring out the red flag and with half of the session still left to run. After a twenty minute delay Juan Pablo would start to get ready. Both BMW WilliamsF1 Team drivers would return to the track, with the track starting to dry as the air temp increasing to 21 degrees.

A small spin by Jordan's Giancarlo Fisichella would see him on the grass, but like Ralf's earlier spin he would hit hit nothing and continue on. Top speeds are about 320 kp/h at the moment, which is slightly less than expected.

With Ralf completing eleven laps and Juan Pablo ten, both drivers would return to the pits. Ralf would get out of his car, while Juan Pablo remained in his. Upon his return to the track Ralf would have another spin but this time he would back his car into the wall, damaging the rear of the car. Minus his rear wing Ralf would make his way back into the pits. Juan Pablo would do one flying lap near the end of the session.

Juan Pablo would join Ralf back in the pits. For Ralf his session would be over as the team would have to fix the rear wing of his car. Since Barrichello's accident Ferrari would not let Michael Schumacher go back out onto the track. They will wait until they (Ferrari) know what happened. Jordan's Fisichella would move up into second, 0.3 secs behind Michael Schumacher.