Free practice 1: Coulthard leads from the front

The return of traction control seemed to have little effect on the pecking order, as McLaren headed two Ferraris and the leading Williams-BMW.

The locals were in for a treat after 15 minutes, however, as Jaguar newboy Pedro de la Rosa headed fellow Spaniard Fernando Alonso's Minardi at the top of the times, before the big guns came out to play.

Coulthard's 1m20.388s was set on only his fourth lap of the morning, less than 20 minutes into the session. Michael Schumacher soon followed with his best effort of a 1m20.992s, and was faster than the Scot in the first sector before losing out over the rest of the lap.

Rubens Barrichello then pipped his Ferrari team mate by almost two-tenths of a second, but suffered a brief off-track excursion at Turn One later in the session. Ralf Schumacher leapt to fourth, just behind his brother, in his Williams-BMW on 1m21.259s.

McLaren's Mika Hakkinen was fifth quickest, despite setting the fastest time in the first sector, but was obviously unhappy with the handling of his car as he explained to his technical director Adrian Newey in the pits with a series of 'I've got massive understeer' hand gestures. British American Racing's Olivier Panis was sixth fastest, ahead of Montoya, Jarno Trulli (Jordan-Honda) and Frentzen.

Drivers were complaining of low grip and a lot of understeer, and a number of teams altered their traction control settings accordingly. The track appeared to get slower as the session progressed and its temperature steadily rose to 27-degrees under the sunny Spanish skies.

In the wars were Williams-BMW's Juan Pablo Montoya, who spun at Turn Seven while, moments later, Heinz-Harald Frentzen also rotated his Jordan-Honda at the same spot. The German had just set his fastest first sector of the session when he dropped a wheel on to the grass under braking and spun backwards into the gravel, just avoiding the tyrewall.

Others to suffer trouble included British American Racing's Jacques Villeneuve, whose Honda engine appeared to explode as he left the pits, showering the pit exit with sparks and shrapnel. That restricted him to 14th fastest.

Both Jaguar's Pedro de la Rosa and Prost's Luciano Burti were impressive against their respective new team mates. De la Rosa was 0.2secs slower than Eddie Irvine, while Burti was 0.4secs off Jean Alesi.

Enrique Bernoldi set the fastest speed trap of the session at 197.22mph, and was over a second quicker than his Arrows-Asiatech team mate Jos Verstappen, but this was only good enough for 15th fastest time.

But that's better than the Benetton-Renaults managed, with Giancarlo Fisichella 18th and Jenson Button again struggling to beat the Minardis in 21st and almost a second slower than his team mate.

For Practice Session 1 results, click here.