Practice 2, Schumacher on top form

Although it is difficult to judge whether Ferrari's apparent advantage lies in its new F2004 chassis or Bridgestone's brand new tyre compounds at this early stage, what is clear is that the gap between Schumacher and his Michelin-shod rivals remained at never less than a second for the entire day.

Schumacher was scintillating in the first half of the second session, working down to a 1m24.718s best before taking a wild ride across the grass on the exit of the last corner. Team-mate Barrichello simply couldn't match the world champion's final sector times and had to settle for a time 0.108s slower.

Mid-way through the session, the Brazilian was on a quick lap but got baulked by Toyota's Cristiano da Matta, who was recovering from an off. Later though, Barrichello proved his pace by matching Schumacher's first two sector times and only falling behind by 0.109s in the final part of the lap.

Renault continued to be best of the rest, with Jarno Trulli again setting third fastest time. He left it until the latter stages of the session, but the Italian's lap of 1m25.757s got him to 1.039s of Schumacher. Team-mate Fernando Alonso also kept in touch after several strong early laps left him less than a tenth behind Trulli.

Briton Jenson Button gave BAR yet another boost by setting the fourth-quickest time, although the time immediately preceded his stopping on-track with a technical fault. Team-mate Takuma Sato was briefly seventh in the times, but dropped to 12th as other drivers got quicker. Several of his quick laps were spoilt by some lurid offs across the grass, and one major spin on his second hot lap.

The BMW-Williams pairing of Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya may be disappointed not to be ahead of the Renault drivers in the times and ended the day sixth and seventh. Both drivers spent some time on the grass and Montoya had a spin in the penultimate corner. The same could be said of McLaren's drivers. David Coulthard emerged as the better of the two again, setting eighth quickest time with Kimi Raikkonen was almost 0.4s behind him.

Mark Webber gave his home crowd something to cheer about in the Jaguar, going as high as fifth in the first half of the session. He looked good for it too but lost out as a rash of drivers banged in quick laps late on, leaving the Australian ninth. His team-mate, Christian Klien, completed far more laps than in the first session, racking up a total of 20. But he failed to make an impact on his first day and could only manage 17th and a spin at turn four. He was, however, quicker than tester Bjorn Wirdheim in this session.

Sauber drivers Giancarlo Fisichella and Felipe Massa were 11th and 13th. The Brazilian at least getting a full session's running this time.

The Toyota squad had another torrid time of it with Cristiano da Matta enduring several offs. He ended up 16th and pulled off the track with a left-rear puncture, while team-mate Olivier Panis was two places behind and a disappointing 3.089s off the pace. Toyota tester Ricardo Zonta embarrassed the pair of them by setting the 14th quickest time, and that was despite a spin of his own.

Jordan and Minardi brought up the rear. As everyone else got quicker, they were left behind. Jordan's difficult afternoon was compounded by tester Timo Glock's car grinding to a halt at turn five.