Practice 1: Rubens in charge

BAR's Friday star Anthony Davidson kept the two Ferraris in his sights with the third quickest time ahead of Juan Pablo Montoya, the quickest of the BMW-Williams. Toyota's test driver Ricardo Zonta was fifth ahead of Jaguar's test driver Bjorn Wirdheim.

Zonta set the initial pace in the first session which falls less than a week after the grid lined up for the Canadian GP in Montreal. Davidson was determined to maintain his impressive record on Fridays by claiming a spot near the top.

Twenty five minutes into the session though, and Schumacher made himself known by knocking nearly two seconds off Zonta's time. A lap later and the German slashed a further 1.6s off his time to set his best effort of the session - 1m11.619s.

Perhaps feeling slighted from his bridesmaid appearance in Canada, team-mate Barrichello decided it was his turn in the limelight pipping Schumacher by just two hundredths of a second. With 10 minutes left of the session the Brazilian knocked a further two tenths off his time to set the fastest time of the session.

BAR's Jenson Button showed initial promise at one point behind the Ferraris in third, but it wasn't to last and the Briton dropped to seventh ahead of Sauber's Giancarlo Fisichella, who ran fourth at one point aided with the fastest top speed in the traps at 203mph.

The remaining big hitters featured outside the top 10. Williams' Ralf Schumacher was 10th while McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen (12th) was sandwiched between the two Renaults of Fernando Alonso (11th) and Jarno Trulli (13th). McLaren's David Coulthard languished down in 18th.

The red flag was brought out once during the session following a spin from Minardi's Gianmaria Bruni. Other excursions off track included those from Sato, Coulthard and Wirdheim.