Bridgestone fastest in Brazilian Friday practice

The final race weekend of the FIA Formula One World Championship kicked off today in Sao Paulo, Brazil, with WilliamsF1's Alex Wurz setting the pace in his Bridgestone shod FW28 with a time of 1m12.547s. Panasonic Toyota Racing's Jarno Trulli was next up for Bridgestone with the fourth fastest time of the second session while Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro's Michael Schumacher was sixth fastest, just ahead of Ralf Schumacher.

Franck Montagny, Super Aguri F1's third driver, impressed after setting the eighth fastest time of the afternoon practice, which took place in dry but overcast conditions at the 4.309km Interlagos track.

Hisao Suganuma, Bridgestone Motorsport Technical Manager, said: "Five Bridgestone cars in the top eight in this afternoon's practice session is a good positive way to start this final race weekend of the year. The track was predictably very green and dirty this morning - especially after yesterday's torrential rain. But, the track evolved quickly and by the second practice session, lap times were at a reasonable level. Those teams with third cars were able to complete comparisons of their two Bridgestone tyre specifications but some of the teams only ran one spec today. This is an anti-clockwise circuit which meant that we noted some graining on the front right tyres of some of the cars today but it was within acceptable limits and we expect any graining to improve as the weekend progresses. At this stage we believe that the softer specifications are still an option for this Sunday's race, although we do need to further assess how consistent the tyre specifications are which have been brought here before giving our final recommendations to the teams."