Saturday First Free Practice - Malaysian GP

World Champion Michael Schumacher was fastest in the Saturday morning practice session at Sepang as he helped Ferrari blitz the field by three quarters of a second ahead of this Sunday's Malaysian Grand Prix.

Schumacher, who dominated the first Friday practice but fell behind in the second, stamped his authority back on the weekend with a time of 1:33.391 to finish 0.784 seconds ahead of Spaniard Fernando Alonso's Renault.

Schumacher's session was not without incident, as he spun at turn nine, but it was more encouraging than Kimi Raikkonen's start to the day as the McLaren-Mercedes driver, who topped the times in the second session on Friday, failed to set a time.

German Ralf Schumacher slotted into third place for Williams-BMW with Rubens Barrichello the only other man within a second of Schumacher in fourth place for Ferrari.

Scot David Coulthard was fifth in his McLaren-Mercedes, Italian Jarno Trulli sixth in the second Renault and Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya seventh in the second Williams-BMW.

Australian Mark Webber, who finished Friday in third place for Jaguar, was eighth, Briton Jenson Button was ninth for BAR-Honda and Italian Giancarlo Fisichella completed the top ten in his Sauber.

Brazilian Cristiano Da Matta's disappointing weekend continued when he spun his Toyota into the gavel trap at turn eight and was forced to stop. Italian Giorgio Pantano was another spinner as he lost control of his Jordan at turn nine.

Pos Driver Team Time Laps 1. M.Schumacher Ferrari (B) 1:33.391 213.669km/h 7 2. Alonso Renault (M) 1:34.175 + 0.784 12 3. R.Schumacher Williams-BMW (M) 1:34.239 + 0.848 8 4. Barrichello Ferrari (B) 1:34.362 + 0.971 9 5. Coulthard McLaren-Mercedes (M) 1:34.415 + 1.024 9 6. Trulli Renault (M) 1:34.482 + 1.091 14 7. Montoya Williams-BMW (M) 1:34.547 + 1.156 12 8. Webber Jaguar-Cosworth (M) 1:34.770 + 1.379 5 9. Button BAR-Honda (M) 1:34.839 + 1.448 11 10. Fisichella Sauber-Petronas (B) 1:35.516 + 2.125 9 11. da Matta Toyota (M) 1:35.678 + 2.287 4 12. Sato BAR-Honda (M) 1:35.697 + 2.306 16 13. Panis Toyota (M) 1:35.697 + 2.306 10 14. Massa Sauber-Petronas (B) 1:35.813 + 2.422 10 15. Klien Jaguar-Cosworth (M) 1:36.106 + 2.715 8 16. Heidfeld Jordan-Ford (B) 1:37.194 + 3.803 9 17. Pantano Jordan-Ford (B) 1:38.302 + 4.911 11 18. Baumgartner Minardi-Cosworth (B) 1:39.013 + 5.622 13 19. Bruni Minardi-Cosworth (B) 1:39.209 + 5.818 11 20. Raikkonen McLaren-Mercedes (M) No Time 4 All timing unofficial