Kubica fastest in practice 1

Pushing his BMW Sauber hard, he wound up three tenths of a second faster than his nearest rival, Briton Anthony Davidson. who clocked a best lap of 1:17.133 in his Honda.

Davidson's fellow Briton and Honda teammate Jenson Button was third fastest, 1.3 seconds off the pace, after only four laps.

On a hot day in Burgundy in central France, with the air temperature rising beyond 32 degrees Celsius and the track temperature at 47 degrees, most of the top drivers chose not to venture out of their garages.

Many of the fans in the weekend sellout crowd, enjoying the Bastille Day heatwave, did not see any laps from Ferrari, with both Michael Schumacher and Felipe Massa choosing to remain indoors.

There was no action from several other drivers including Nick Heidfeld, of the BMW Sauber team, Mark Webber of Williams and Rubens Barrichello of Honda.

After all the long queues to enter the circuit, the intense heat and the lack of any shade, it must have seemed a high price to pay for little entertainment, but the drivers who made an effort, including briefly Jenson Button in his Honda, did their best.

The hour's session was littered with incidents with several drivers running off and returning to the track and Japan's Sakon Yamamoto in a Super Aguri providing most entertainment with his erratic performance. He finally came to a stop at turn 12.

Frenchman Franck Montagny in another Super Aguri Honda, making his final appearance before stepping down, was also on and off the circuit frequently and had one lap time stripped for cutting out an apex.

Spaniard Pedro de la Rosa, back racing for McLaren as replacement for the departed Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya, clocked just one lap.

Pos  Driver        Team                     Time              Laps
 1.  Kubica        BMW-Sauber          (M)  1:16.794            31
 2.  Davidson      Honda               (M)  1:17.133 +  0.339   29
 3.  Button        Honda               (M)  1:18.160 +  1.366    4
 4.  R.Schumacher  Toyota              (B)  1:18.752 +  1.958    6
 5.  Sutil         MF1-Toyota          (B)  1:18.777 +  1.983   32
 6.  Jani          Toro Rosso-Cosworth (M)  1:18.962 +  2.168   21
 7.  Wurz          Williams-Cosworth   (B)  1:19.055 +  2.261   17
 8.  Villeneuve    BMW-Sauber          (M)  1:19.063 +  2.269    6
 9.  Doornbos      Red Bull-Ferrari    (M)  1:19.311 +  2.517   20
10.  Rosberg       Williams-Cosworth   (B)  1:19.401 +  2.607    6
11.  Albers        MF1-Toyota          (B)  1:19.465 +  2.671    7
12.  Trulli        Toyota              (B)  1:19.806 +  3.012    7
13.  Monteiro      MF1-Toyota          (B)  1:20.335 +  3.541    7
14.  Montagny      Super Aguri-Honda   (B)  1:20.790 +  3.996   11
15.  Sato          Super Aguri-Honda   (B)  1:21.160 +  4.366   10
16.  Yamamoto      Super Aguri-Honda   (B)  1:23.891 +  7.097   11
17.  Fisichella    Renault             (M)  No time              1
18.  Alonso        Renault             (M)  No time              1
19.  de la Rosa    McLaren-Mercedes    (M)  No time              1
20.  Speed         Toro Rosso-Cosworth (M)  No time              1
21.  Liuzzi        Toro Rosso-Cosworth (M)  No time              2
22.  Coulthard     Red Bull-Ferrari    (M)  No time              1
23.  Klien         Red Bull-Ferrari    (M)  No time              1
24.  Raikkonen     McLaren-Mercedes    (M)  No time              1
25.  M.Schumacher  Ferrari             (B)
26.  Massa         Ferrari             (B)
27.  Webber        Williams-Cosworth   (B)
28.  Barrichello   Honda               (M)
29.  Heidfeld      BMW-Sauber          (M)

All Timing Unofficial