WilliamsF1 off the pace after 1st Spanish practice

Ralf would be sixth while Juan Pablo was eleventh. For both drivers they were over 1.5 seconds behind the quickest times. These are not the sort of numbers that one could say are encouraging even if there is quite some time for the WilliamsF1 team to setup their cars.

Such was Michael's superiority that he would set a time that was two seconds faster than last year's pole time, and this was only in a practice session. He would be backed up by team-mate Rubens Barrichello who was second.

Third position would go to BAR-Honda test driver Anthony Davidson, slower than Michael by 0.958 seconds. This was an encouraging time for the BAR team as they try to challenge Ferrari.

Toyota test driver Ricardo Zonta would finish fourth fastest. He was the only other driver to be within one second of Michael Schumacher. For BAR Jenson Button was 1.402 seconds off the pace in fifth.

WilliamsF1's Ralf Schumacher and Renault's Fernando Alonso finished sixth and seventh. Takuma Sato would make it three BAR cars inside the top ten. Toyota's Olivier Panis finished in ninth place with McLaren's  Kimi Raikkonen completing top ten. He was to be almost two seconds down Michael's time.