Two Toyotas in top five

Until Jarno Trulli posted the fastest lap of the day with just a few minutes remaining, McNish was set to take the fastest time honours. Considering that it was his first time at the track in an F1 car, it was an impressive performance.

"I'm happy," said McNish. "The car was a bit better than we expected here. I got into the rhythm of the circuit quite quickly, which was something I didn't really expect. It just started to click and overall it was a good session.

"The strategy was not to do any real development of the car but just to get laps under my belt. We tried a low fuel run at the end but unfortunately it rained slightly and it was a bit hard to make a fair evaluation of where we are. I kept very much off the barriers in the first session but in the second session I was a lot closer. It seemed to be reasonably under control but maybe not as much as it looked from the outside!"

One man impressed by McNish's efforts was Bernie Ecclestone, who in the middle of a TV interview put his arm around the Scot and said: "What happened to you out there, were you drunk?"

Allan replied: "No. Stuck throttle and I couldn't brake!"

Salo, who is regarded as a Monaco expert, so his performance in setting the fifth best time came as less of a surprise, but few would have expected the Toyotas to be ahead of both Ferraris.

"It was a relatively good session," said Salo. "We learned a lot from the three-day test at Paul Ricard last week, but there is a bit to improve in the balance of my car. Still I am suffering from a lot of understeer, which I hope we can cure before Saturday's qualifying."