Fisichella Fastest in Practice 4 - Japan

Renault driver Fisichella left it late in the session to secure the top spot with a lap of 1:50.136 but the times were relatively meaningless as the wet track and continuous rain limited running.

Indian Narain Karthikeyan, of Jordan, made it into the top two and almost finished the session ahead having set his flying lap in the closing seconds of the session.

Fisichella bumped him down to second but he was just 0.014 seconds behind, with Ralf Schumacher, of Toyota, third, Briton Jenson Button finishing fourth for BAR-Honda and Christijan Albers fifth for Minardi.

Jordan's Tiago Monteiro was sixth, Mark Webber, of Williams, seventh, Jarno Trulli eighth in the second Toyota, David Coulthard ninth for Red Bull and Robert Doornbos, the only man to complete double figures of laps, in tenth.

Outgoing World Champion Michael Schumacher failed to get out of the garage following his crash in first practice while the McLaren pair of Kimi Raikkonen and Juan Pablo Montoya chose not to run.

Fernando Alonso, of Renault, led the way early on but there were few cars out on track due to the wet conditions with just six drivers completing a timed lap by the time the clock ticked down to ten minutes left.

Doornbos was caught out by the weather and spun after his first lap early in the session then Fisichella moved to the top, with Klien slotting into second to push Alonso to third.

A flurry of cars came out in the closing minutes but Fisichella remained on top until one minute from the end, when Ralf Schumacher moved ahead of the pile before Karthikeyan and finally Fisichella.

Pos  Driver         Team                  Time                  Laps
 1.  Fisichella    Renault           (M)  1:50.136                9
 2.  Karthikeyan   Jordan-Toyota     (B)  1:50.150  +    0.014    6
 3.  R.Schumacher  Toyota            (M)  1:50.369  +    0.233    8
 4.  Button        BAR-Honda         (M)  1:50.920  +    0.784    7
 5.  Albers        Minardi-Cosworth  (B)  1:50.994  +    0.858    8
 6.  Monteiro      Jordan-Toyota     (B)  1:51.223  +    1.087    6
 7.  Webber        Williams-BMW      (M)  1:51.274  +    1.138    5
 8.  Trulli        Toyota            (M)  1:51.503  +    1.367    8
 9.  Coulthard     Red Bull-Cosworth (M)  1:51.710  +    1.574    9
10.  Doornbos      Minardi-Cosworth  (B)  1:51.971  +    1.835   10
11.  Alonso        Renault           (M)  1:52.667  +    2.531    9
12.  Klien         Red Bull-Cosworth (M)  1:52.897  +    2.761    4
13.  Villeneuve    Sauber-Petronas   (M)  1:53.460  +    3.324    8
14.  Barrichello   Ferrari           (B)  1:53.739  +    3.603    5
15.  Massa         Sauber-Petronas   (M)  1:53.842  +    3.706    8
16.  Sato          BAR-Honda         (M)  1:54.307  +    4.171    8
17.  Pizzonia      Williams-BMW      (M)  2:01.075  +   10.939    4
18.  M.Schumacher  Ferrari           (B)  No Time                  
19.  Raikkonen     McLaren-Mercedes  (M)  No Time                  
20.  Montoya       McLaren-Mercedes  (M)  No Time                  

All timing unofficial