Free practice 1: Rubens pips Coulthard

The hour-long session was over 20 minutes old before either of the Ferraris took to the track, but it didn't take Barrichello long to impose himself at the head of the times. His lap of 1m15.059s is just over two seconds shy of Ralf Schumacher's 2001 pole time, and surprisingly didn't contain one fastest sector time.

Coulthard on the other hand was quickest through both the second and third timing splits, while Michael Schumacher had a significant advantage in the first sector that could prove telling later this weekend.

Juan Pablo Montoya complained of snap oversteer and mid-corner understeer, but still managed to set the pace early on. He was only two tenths down on Barrichello in fourth by the finish.

The top 10 was dominated by Michelin-shod cars, with only Takuma Sato's 10th-placed Jordan and the ubiquitous Ferraris breaking the French manufacturer's monopoly. Ralf Schumacher and Kimi Raikkonen were fifth and sixth ahead of Jenson Button in seventh, less than a second behind Barrichello.

The Jaguars showed greatly improved form with Eddie Irvine eighth and Pedro de la Rosa ninth, although it will be interesting to see if they can sustain that form in qualifying on Saturday.

One of the few moments of action in a generally lifeless session came early on in the session when Mika Salo and Sato had a coming together at Imola. The Toyota driver was on a hot lap when he caught the Japanese on the approach to the fast right/left kink. The Jordan cut across the racing line forcing Salo to take to the run off, but even as he attempted to return to the track Sato refused to yield. Salo's right front wheel made contact with the left rear of the Jordan although the Finn was able to nurse his car back to the pits.

The Toyota mechanics gave the front suspension of the TF102 a check before sending Salo out, but he did only a couple more laps before returning to the pits where he stayed for the rest of the session.

Alex Yoong kept up his unenviable record for having spun at almost every track this season with a harmless pirouette on the exit of the final corner. Team-mate Mark Webber had a much bigger moment when he slid across the gravel on the inside of the long Estoril right-hander. And with a few minutes of the session remaining Barrichello also had a quick spin after he briefly locked a rear wheel under braking for the 180º hairpin.

In the final minutes both Giancarlo Fisichella and Jacques Villeneuve had near-identical incidents on the exit of Chicane. Fisi managed to keep the Jordan pointing in the right direction and continued across the gravel trap, but the Canadian hit the kerb with such force that the former champion was helpless to prevent BAR spinning backwards into the gravel.

As at Silverstone neither Arrows driver took part in the first session of free practice, as talks with the team's creditors continue. Another carry over from two weeks' ago was the failure of Yoong to break the 107 percent barrier, and the Malaysian will have to find half a second relative to his current pace if he's to avoid a second straight DNQ.