WilliamsF1 slow start in 1st Friday UK practice

For the BMW WilliamsF1 team the opening Friday practice for the 2005 British Grand Prix would see Mark Webber and Nick Heidfeld set times that would see them down the order in fifteenth and sixteenth positions respectively.

With the start of the opening practice session for the 2005 British Grand Prix Red Bull's Vitantonio Liuzzi would lead out a group of cars, including Zonta, Albers, de la Rosa, Friesacher, Doornbos, and Coulthard. The drivers were making their usual system checks.

They were joined by Monteiro, Klein, and Villeneuve. Zonta would be the first driver to set a time with a lap of 1m:32.087. He would improve his time with a 1m:25.129 but rival de la Rosa would go fastest with a 1m:23.916 on his first lap. Zonta would move ahead of the Spaniard with a 1m:22.688, but the McLaren driver would go fastest again with a lap of 1m:22.124.

Liuzzi's first laps registers at 1:24.469, while Pedro was now down to a
1m:21.377. Jordan's Friday driver Robert Doornbos would set his first time with a 1m:29.688. Jordan team-mate Karthikeyan would move his Jordan into fourth with a 1m:26.402.

Zonta would lower his time to now be a 1m:21.958, 0.581 behind de la Rosa. Also taking to the circuit, but not yet setting a lap time were the BAR's of Sato and Button, the second Sauber of Massa, both Montoya and Raikkonen, and both Renault's. Neither BMW WilliamsF1 driver had come out of their garages yet.

Zonta would again secure the top spot with a 1m:21.244. Pedro would improve his time with a 1m:21.263 but remained in second. Liuzzi would do the same but remained in third. Zonta and de la Rosa would lower their times with a 1m:20.703, 1m:20.915 respectively.

With over half the session complete Raikkonen would move into third with a time of 1m:22.220. He would improve to go fastest with a time of 1m:20.411. Now we would see both Mark Webber and Nick Heidfeld come out of their garages for their first laps. Toyota's Ricardo Zonta would improve his time with a 1m:20.592, but he was still behind Raikkonen.

Mark Webber's first lap would see him in fifth with a 1m:23.522. de la Rosa would take the top spot from his team-mate with a 1m:19.663 while Zonta would move into second with a 1m:20.139. Both Ferrari's were out on the circuit and Michael Schumacher would move into fourth with a 1m:22.257. Team-mate Barrichello was in sixth with a 1m:23.190.

BAR's Takuma Sato was now in fifth place, a 1m:22.991, but Rubens would move into this spot with a 1m:22.512. Button was now in fourth with a 1m:21.166. Massa was in seventh with a 1m:22.350. de la Rosa would go even faster improving his time by half a second to finish with a lap of 1m:19.205 to be 0.934 seconds ahead of Zonta.

Button was now in third with a 1m:20.211 while Ralf Schumacher would put his Toyota into the top five with a 1m:21.080. Montoya was in sixth with Rubens and Michael in seventh and eight. But Sato Would move ahead of the Ferrari pair but Michael would quickly take back seventh place from the BAR driver.

Mark and Nick were now down in fifteenth and sixteenth positions, over four seconds slower than the quickest time set by de la Rosa. The red Bull's of Coulthard, Klein, and Liuzzi were in twelfth through to thirteenth positions.

With the end of the session neither Renault driver had set a time. They were joined by Toyota's Jarno Trulli. So the top ten at the end of the session was de la Rosa followed by Zonta, Button, Raikkonen, Ralf Schumacher, Montoya, Michael Schumacher, Sato, Barrichello, and Massa.