Wurz second fastest in opening Bahrain practice

In what would try out to be a session that would support the view that the Friday sessions would see little running by the teams, apart from those running third drivers, the opening Friday practice for the 2006 Bahrain Grand Prix would only see seventeen drivers set times.

For the WilliamsF1 team the only driver to set a time was Friday driver Alex Wurz. Alex would finish second in the session after setting a time of 1m:32.310. He would complete eighteen laps. Alex would have one moment during the session when he left his braking too late at turn ten spinning his car on to the concrete run-off area. He was able to return to the track. As for Mark Webber and Nico Rosberg neither driver would complete any laps in the session.

As for the other teams it would be the BMW Sauber of test driver Robert Kubica who would set the quickest time of the session. He would set a time of 1m:32.170. Behind Alex in third came McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen followed by Ferrari's Michael Schumacher. Both drivers would take to the track late in the session and only complete a handful of laps.

Red Bull's Christian Christian Klien and Squadro Toro Rosso's Neel Jani were next in the times. McLaren's Juan Pablo Montoya, Ferrari's Felipe Massa, and Red Bull's David Coulthard completed the top ten.

Renault's Fernando Alonso and team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella both did one  installation lap mid-way through the session but did not set an official time. The session would see four drivers not completing a lap at all during the session. They were Honda's Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello, and Mark and Nico.

Both of the Super Aguri's drivers would finish up slowest in the times with Yuji Ide having suffering a mechanical problem that would see him return to the pits after a piece of bodywork had flown off his left sidepod.

Such were the times and the limited amount of running that the main teams did that little significance could be placed on them. Hopefully the next Friday session will see the teams start to set some serious times as the prepare for Saturday. Given the limited amount of running the cars did it was not surprising that there were no problems with V8 engines reported.