Wurz fastest in 1st Friday Practice at Shanghai

Alex Wurz
By Andrew Hooper
September 29 2006

WilliamsF1 Friday driver Alex Wurz would finish at the top of the times in the opening Friday Chinese Grand Prix practice. Neither Mark Webber of Nico Rosberg would venture out onto the circuit during the session.

Chinese GP Friday 1st Practice

The opening practice session for the 2006 Chinese Grand Prix would take place on an overcast day, with very few spectators. Despite this it would be WilliamsF1's Friday driver Alex Wurz who would set the fastest time of the session. For Alex it was his first time on the Shanghai circuit.

Wurz Alex would spend the majority of the session contesting the fastest time with Honda's Anthony Davidson. Neither of Alex's team-mates Mark Webber or Nico Rosberg would come out for this session, a practice that is quite common for the WilliamsF1 team to allow Alex to complete all the early running.

Alex would finish with a time of 1m:35.574 after completing twenty one laps. The FW28 would be running with the aerodynamic updates that were recently tested at the Silverstone circuit.

Of the field only eighteen drivers would set a time and it would not be until late in the session that we would see third placed Button come out. He was followed by Michael Schumacher. Championship rival Fernando Alonso did not complete a lap in the session.

Pos  Driver        Team                     Time     Laps
 1.  Wurz          WilliamsF1-Cosworth (B)  1:35.574 21
 2.  Davidson      Honda               (M)  1:35.591 26
 3.  Button        Honda               (M)  1:37.291 4
 4.  M.Schumacher  Ferrari             (B)  1:37.712 4
 5.  Jani          Toro Rosso-Cosworth (M)  1:37.734 21
 6.  Premat        Spyker MF1-Toyota   (B)  1:37.787 24
 7.  Vettel        BMW-Sauber          (M)  1:37.913 24
 8.  Kubica        BMW-Sauber          (M)  1:38.062 6
 9.  Ammermuller   Red Bull-Ferrari    (M)  1:38.460 18
10.  Montagny      Super Aguri-Honda   (B)  1:38.464 19
11.  Liuzzi        Toro Rosso-Cosworth (M)  1:39.000 6
12.  Barrichello   Honda               (M)  1:39.217 4
13.  Speed         Toro Rosso-Cosworth (M)  1:39.428 7
14.  Albers        Spyker MF1-Toyota   (B)  1:39.494 6
15.  Sato          Super Aguri-Honda   (B)  1:39.887 8
16.  Monteiro      Spyker MF1-Toyota   (B)  1:39.947 7
17.  Yamamoto      Super Aguri-Honda   (B)  1:41.415 10
18.  Raikkonen     McLaren-Mercedes    (M)  1:45.890 4
19.  Heidfeld      BMW-Sauber          (M)  No time  1
20.  Trulli        Toyota              (B)  No time  2
21.  R.Schumacher  Toyota              (B)  No time  2
22.  Coulthard     Red Bull-Ferrari    (M)  No time  1
23.  Doornbos      Red Bull-Ferrari    (M)  No time  2
24.  Alonso        Renault             (M)  No time
25.  Fisichella    Renault             (M)  No time
26.  de la Rosa    McLaren-Mercedes    (M)  No time
27.  Massa         Ferrari             (B)  No time
28.  Webber        WilliamsF1-Cosworth (B)  No time
29.  Rosberg       WilliamsF1-Cosworth (B)  No time