France: Practice – Toyota in a good position

By Nick Sparkes
July 16 2006

The final practice session before this afternoons knockout qualifying saw a number of surprises at the sharp end of the timesheets. Namely BMW Sauber who dominated the first two positions, but also Jarno Trulli and Toyota who finished an impressive third.

On another hot and humid day, the weather got the better of Ferrari’s Michael Schumacher whose Ferrari returned to the pit lane on fire, suffering from the high temperatures. Michael’s time was only good enough for fourteenth after running only five laps.

With Jarno Trulli up in third, and under a tenth behind the two BMW-Saubers, teammate Ralf Schumacher wasn’t far behind in ninth. The two Toyota’s have shown some impressive pace over the last few days, with the hopes of getting both cars into the final ten highly likely in this afternoons knockout qualifying.