WilliamsF1 drivers 2nd & 3rd in opening practice

Based on these times it really looks like it is going to be a battle between the BMW WilliamsF1 team and that of Ferrari. Barrichello is in fourth but the next fastest driver, McLaren's Raikkonen, is half a second behind the front three.

Ralf Schumacher would set the first fastest time of the session with a 1m16.736s, but this was 0.5s slower than his best lap of Friday. Juan Pablo would also move to the top of the timing sheets with a lap of 1m15m956s. Juan Pablo would eventually set a time of 1m14.626s.

In the final few minutes of the session both Michael and Ralf Schumacher ventured forth onto the track for an attempt at beating Montoya’s lead time of 1m14.626s – Ralf going second fastest 0.081s behind his team mate as both McLaren drivers ran over the grass in the mid sector. As the session ended Michael Schumacher blasted through with a lap of 1m14.509s.

It would appear that in qualifying we should see times in the high 1m13s.

After finishing in third on Friday Michael Schumacher gave every indication that he is going to be part of the fight for pole. Michael set the fastest time in the final minutes of the session. Prior to that he had spent most of the 45 minutes in the lower end of the classifications.

McLaren driver Coulthard, after been fastest on Friday would drop down to ninth.
Coulthard would take a shortcut through the grass at the first chicane. Once again Arrows driver Frentzen set some very competitive times and should be high up the order in qualifying. Heinz would finish the session in sixth.

For the Jordan team both drivers found the going difficult complaining of a lack of grip. Takuma Sato was to spin early in the session at turn 5 and would end up in eighteenth seven places behind team mate, Giancarlo Fisichella.

Both BAR's looked strong with Olivier Panis and Jacques Villeneuve ending the session in seventh and tenth.

With the second practice session normally spent looking at race setups the time set in the morning Saturday practice should give us a good indication of who is going to be in the running for pole, meaning that either Juan Pablo or Ralf has a chance at securing this position.