Practice 1: Schuey supreme

Schumacher was well clear of team-mate Rubens Barrichello too. The Brazilian was second fastest, but 1.359s slower than his German colleague.

Williams' Ralf Schumacher was the best of the rest, 2.166s slower than his brother, with BAR twins Anthony Davidson and Jenson Button next up, both within 0.198s of Schumacher Junior.

Juan Pablo Montoya was sixth quickest in the second Williams, 2.712s off the top time, with Jarno Trulli close behind in the top Renault.

Both Montoya and Trulli completed 11 laps - a ball-park total for the race drivers as third drivers did much of the work for the teams that have them. The next man on the timesheet, Kimi Raikkonen only did four laps though while his team-mate David Coulthard only brought the total for the pair up to 12.

DC was 11th quickest, split from Kimi by Renault's Fernando Alonso and Toyota tester Ricardo Zonta, who was 0.629s quicker than the first of his team-mates Olivier Panis.

Mark Webber was the top Jaguar driver in 12th slot, 3.333s off the top time and closely followed by the two Saubers - Giancarlo Fisichella just ahead of Felipe Massa this time.

Panis was next up in 15th slot, ahead of Takuma Sato in the third BAR, Jaguar tester Bjorn Wirdheim and Cristiano da Matta in the third Toyota.

Nick Heidfeld was the best of the Jordan drivers with the 19th fastest time. His team-mate Giorgio Pantano was next up, just over two tenths of a second slower and ahead of Jaguar's Christian Klien.

Next up, in 22nd place was Jordan third driver Timo Glock, who provided most of the drama in the session. The German survived one lurid spin, before having a proper shunt at Acque Minerali with just over 10 minutes of the session left to run. Glock was unhurt, but he'd knocked the rear wing off and the left front and rear corners off the car.

Jordan, incidentally, is displaying large pictures of the late Ayrton Senna's head on each side of its cars' engine covers.

Propping up the list of times were the three Minardis. Gianmaria Bruni was 23rd best, well over a second clear of Zsolt Baumgartner and Bas Leinders.