Difficult going for WilliamsF1 in Brazil

The BMW WilliamsF1 team would see team driver Juan Pablo Montoya set the fastest time in the opening practice session with a time of 1m:12.547. Ralf Schumacher was third fastest. Now the second session would get under way. Could the WilliamsF1 team maintain their competitive start to the weekend? By the end of the session with answer appeared to be one of no they could not. Ralf and Juan Pablo were down the times in only tenth and eleventh.

The start of the session would see the cars of Robert Doornbos, Gianmaria Bruni, Ryan Briscoe, and Christian Klien all look at setting times. After his second place in the earlier practice Ryan Briscoe would be looking to continue this good showing. he would set a time of 1m:15.431. But it would be Kimi Raikkonen who would come out and set the benchmark time with a lap of 1m:13.512. Briscoe would improve his time with a 1m:14.994.
The second McLaren of David Coulthard would come out and his first time was only a 1m:16.958. Ralf would set a time of 1m:15.172 to be sixth. On his next lap Coulthard would join Kimi at the top of the times with a lap of 1m:13.695.

After his disappointing first practice session where he was in eleventh Michael would jump to third with a time of 1m:14.112. This would be an improvement of over a second on his earlier time. For Coulthard he would take the top spot with a time of 1m:13.145. BAR's Jenson Button would move into second while Rubens Barrichello was now in third with a time of 1m:13.444. Jacques Villeneuve was now in twelfth for Renault. With the track going somewhat quieter it would be Jaguar's Mark Webber who would go to the top of the times with a time of 1m:13.070. Toyota's Jarno Trulli was now in fifth position with a time of 1m:13.481. Michael Schumacher was now in fourth with a 1m:13.442.

Trulli would set the fastest second sector time, 36.8, on his way to setting the quickest time, a 1m:12.545, to be two one thousands of a second faster than Juan Pablo's earlier session time. Coulthard was in second with a time of 1m:12.602. The warmer track conditions certainly seem to favour the Michelin runners. But having said that Sauber's Felipe Massa was now third with a 1m:12.936.

For the BMW WilliamsF1 team their drivers would be way down the order with Ralf in eighteenth while Juan Pablo was sixteenth. For McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen his next lap would be a stunning 1m:11.953, to go fastest. BAR's Jenson Button would move into second with a 1m:12.093, while Ralf would jump quickly up the order with a time of 1:12.374 to be in third.

With just over half the session remaining Takuma Sato would push his team-mate one place down the order when he was to go second fastest with a time of 1m:11.988, just .035 seconds off Raikkonen's time. But as the clouds start to cover the track and the track temperature began to fall it would be Michael Schumacher who would go fastest with a time of 1m:11.743, over two tenths faster than Kimi.

For Ferrari team-mate Barrichello he would go third fastest with a time of 1m:11.962. After their initial slow start both Ferrari drivers seemed to have found pace from their cars. Renault's Fernando Alonso was now in the top ten a 1m:12.005 while Anthony Davidson would move into second with a 1m:11.920. Jacques Villeneuve was in twelfth with a 1m:12.879.

Even though he would abort his lap Michael would set a first sector time of 17.9 seconds, showing very much that he could go faster. Jenson Button was now in first but by only 0.012 seconds, with a time of 1m:11.731. Toyota's Ricardo Zonta was in eighth.

With less than fifteen minutes remaining in the session the top ten was Button, Michael Schumacher, Davidson, Raikkonen, Barrichello, Sato, Alonso, Ralf, Zonta and Ryan Briscoe. Michael Schumacher would return to the track and would go fastest in the first sector by over two tenths, 17.7. He would be four tenths up after sector tow. He would complete his lap with a time of 1m:11.334. He would see his team-mate Rubens go even faster to take the top spot with a time of 1m:11.166, .168 seconds faster than Michael.

For Ralf and Juan Pablo they were now in eighth and ninth with Ralf setting a time of 1m:12.235 and Juan Pablo a 1m:12.280. They both were over a second slower than the quickest times. But both would get pushed down the order when Sauber's Felipe Massa moved into eighth place with a time of 1m:12.183, and Toyota's Ryan Briscoe went ninth fastest. With the final minutes counting down McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen would jump to third with a time of 1m:11.526.