Schuey: Nobody has perfect traction control yet

Although each outfit has devoted hundreds of kilometres of testing to the return of the driver aid, Schumacher is adamant that there is still more to come from the wheelspin limitation device.

"I think we are one of the few teams to have worked intensively on the system, so we are pretty sorted out, but I don't think anyone can claim to have the perfect system yet," he said. "We are still experimenting, trying to improve. We have a good test at this track about one and a half months ago, which gave us a lot of data and pointed us in the right direction.

"Now we are making final improvements to the car, which seem to be going the right way. Tomorrow, in qualifying, we will find out how good it is."

Ferrari's technical director Ross Brawn says that the pecking order has not been significantly disturbed by the return of traction control, despite the fact Jaguar's Eddie Irvine was second quickest on the first day of free practice.

"We tested here with traction control five weeks ago and the situation today was similar to then," said Brawn. "There were no surprises today. We also did a tyre comparison, and it is not yet quite clear which tyre we would prefer for the race. Generally, it was a good day."

For Friday's practice times, click here.