Symonds predicts little running on Fridays

That is the view of Renault's director of engineering Pat Symonds, who claims that the desire by teams to keep as many tyres as possible for qualifying and the race will limit the amount of time they spend on the track during practice.

The situation is further exacerbated by the fact that teams do not have to nominate the type of tyres they will use for the race until just before qualifying - meaning they now have Saturday morning to finalise their choice.

Talking about the likelihood of less running on Fridays, Symonds said: "Those teams with the advantage of the third car will run a lot, but for the top four teams, there will be much less activity.

"The tyre situation is one reason, but we also have a longer qualifying procedure - which will use up engine mileage. We will be managing engine life very carefully once again in 2006, especially at the beginning of the year when all the teams will have brand new units. Everybody will look to save their running on Friday."

Symonds actually believes that the busiest session of the weekend will be the one-hour Saturday morning practice session - solely because track conditions will be more representative of what they will be for the race.

"What we are talking about is a change in the timetable of how we run the car. With a dry weather forecast, I expect we will do very little on Friday morning, a little more in the afternoon, and the majority of our work on Saturday morning, when track conditions will be at their best. That one hour session will be very busy."