Ferrari top time sheets in warm up

The lap times steadily tumbled as the session progressed and half way through McLaren looked to be dominating with Hakkinen at the top of the time sheets and team-mate Coulthard only 0.002sec behind.

With five minutes to go, Ralf Schumacher dipped into the 1m22's, taking his Williams round in a time of 1m22.973sec. Clearly Schumacher Jr's race set up was working better than his ninth spot on the grid would have us believe.

Barrichello then went half a second quicker on the first two sections and looked set to move into the top spot, however traffic slowed him up in the final sector around Rascasse and he finished the lap four seconds slower. He then proceeded to carry his speed on to the next lap and unhindered by traffic went on put in the quickest lap of the session at 1m22.251sec.

The session looked like it would end without further drama until, 30 seconds before the chequered flag was waved Pedro De La Rosa lost traction exiting Tabac and put his Arrows into the barrier. The Spaniard was unhurt but has given his mechanics a busy few hours in which to ready the car for the race.

For full warm up results, click here