Jerez 2: Schumacher quickest

The team was quick to dismiss speculation on Tuesday that Schumacher would be replaced at the Japanese Grand Prix after his falling out with the team at Shanghai last weekend. Both sides have clearly put the incident behind them and buckled down for some solid preparation on the second of their three-day test.

Schumacher worked on a tyre programme for the Japanese Grand Prix on October 10 while team-mate Marc Gene, who set the seventh quickest time, carried out a test on 2005 tyres.

McLaren's third driver Alex Wurz was Schumacher's closest challenger in what was a competitive day on the track with just over one tenth of a second separating the top six drivers.

It was yet another action-packed day, though, with Ferrari's Luca Badoer and Toyota's Jarno Trulli crashing their machines for the second consecutive day. Badoer's accident at the first corner was initially believed to be another brake failure, but the team later revealed that it was driver error that caused the Italian to career off the circuit.

Trulli, whose smash occurred later on in the day, suffered a rear-suspension related failure caused his rear wing to fall off. Click HERE for the full story


Testing continues at Jerez on Thursday.

Ralf Schumacher (Williams) 1m16.847s
Alex Wurz (McLaren) 1m16.917s
Franck Montagny (Renault) 1m16.922s
Anthony Davidson (BAR) 1m16.933s
Pedro de la Rosa (McLaren) 1m16.952s
Heikki Kovalainen (Renault) 1m16.960s
Marc Gene (Williams) 1m17.262s
Jarno Trulli (Toyota) 1m17.356s
Enrique Bernoldi (BAR) 1m17.663s
Luca Badoer (Ferrari) 1m19.412s