Bridgestone wets prove best

Although there were five Bridgestone-shod cars and five Michelin-shod cars in the top 10, the top three runners were all on Bridgestones, with the Ferraris a full second clear of Giancarlo Fisichella's Jordan-Honda.

Hisao Suganuma, Bridgestone's technical manager, said: "All three of our wet weather specifications worked well. In the later part of the session the grip seemed to reduce but overall the performance was encouraging."

Michael Schumacher set the day's best, 0.19s clear of Ferrari team mate Rubens Barrichello despite a spin 10 minutes before the end of the session as most drivers switched onto intermediates.

"We expect the weather for qualifying to be similar to today," said Ferrari technical director Ross Brawn, "so we wanted to get plenty of running in to set the car up for the wet. We ran one of the wet tyres and one intermediate. Michael touched a kerb on the exit of the chicane then unfortunately the engine stalled, but it was nothing serious. Our car is working well and we have the benefit of testing here, so it was quite well balance, even in the wet."

Gary Anderson, meanwhile, confirmed that as with Ferrari, Jordan's best time was set on the full wet tyre and not an intermediate.

"We tried the inter at the end but really it was still too wet for that type of tyre," Anderson said. "The choice between the two normal wets depends upon the amount of water on the track, but the car feels a bit more secure on on of them. The intermediate also has quite a large span in terms of the conditions it works in."

Heinz-Harald Frentzen's sixth place for Arrows reinforced the Bridgestone supremacy with the McLarens of David Coulthard and Kimi Raikkonen setting the best Bridgestone times, in fourth and fifth places respectively.