WilliamsF1 5th & 6th after Friday 1st Practice

Both WilliamsF1 drivers would spend the session making adjustments to their cars. Ralf would come into the pits and complete a practice pit-stop in front of the BMW WilliamF1 Team pits.

The session would see Ferrari's Michael Schumacher head the times, with team-mate Rubens Barrichello second. Michael's best time was a 1m:36.109, two tenths of a second faster than Rubens.

Behind the Ferrari pair came a flood of Michelin runners with McLaren's David Coulthard third fastest, half a second ahead of team-mate Kimi Raikkonen who set the fourth fastest time. The BMW WilliamsF1 drivers were fifth and sixth ahead of Jaguar's Eddie Irvine who set the seventh fastest time.

Jarno Trulli proved to the faster of the two Renault drivers, taking the eighth fastest time ahead of the second Jaguar of Pedro de la Rosa and team-mate Jenson Button who made it into the top ten.

Jordan's Giancarlo Fisichella was eleventh fastest, two places ahead of team-mate Takuma Sato. Mika Salo was twelfth fastest in his final Grand Prix while Allan McNish was just seventeenth, which must be disappointing given this is Toyota's home Grand Prix..

For BAR Jacques Villeneuve would crash exiting the Spoon Curve, bringing out the red flag. Villeneuve would hit the wall at around 200 km/h, spin across the track and comes to a halt. It was a heavy impact for Villeneuve, but he was able to climb from his wrecked car.

“As soon as I was on the curve the traction control decided not to work, so we will have to look at the data,” Villeneuve commented. “It’s reparable so hopefully we can get out in the second session.”

For team-mate Olivier Panis things weer just a frustrating. As he passed the scene of the crash he pressed the ‘kill switch’ and his car stopped just before the 130R. Panis completed just six laps been fourteenth fastest, while Jacques was nineteenth.

Both Sauber drivers struggled with Nick Heidfeld in particular suffering from excessive understeer and was just fifteenth fastest ahead of Felipe Massa who returns to the team this weekend after missing the US Grand Prix. Over at Minardi, Mark Webber was eighteenth while Alex Yoong was twentith.