Warm up: Ferraris quicker than the rest

It was Barrichello who ended the session at the head of the times, lapping the Nurburgring in an impressive 1m32.671s, three tenths up on his team-mate and 1.5s quicker than the next fastest car, the McLaren of David Coulthard. Just as significantly, the Williams-BMWs of Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya were well off the pace, recording the 14th and 17th best times.

Ralf had topped the times early in the session, but almost from the off it was the Ferraris setting the pace. Both of the red cars took turns at the top as they whittled their times down.

For some of the session the third-placed car was the Arrows of Heinz-Harald Frentzen. The German, who will start the race from back in 15th, looks likely to run a two-stop strategy this afternoon in a effort to get himself into the top six. In a session of few incidents, Frentzen was one of the only drivers to have an off-track excursion when he ran wide an took to the grass at the RTL Kehre.

Kimi Raikkonen backed up his team-mate in fourth and Takuma Sato continued his impressive weekend by once again out-pacing Giancarlo Fisichella to take sixth. The Italian wasn't far behind in seventh, while the BAR pairing of Jacques Villeneuve and Olivier Panis were closely matched in eighth and ninth. Felipe Massa rounded out the top 10.

Like Williams, the Renaults were well down the order. Jenson Button was three seconds off the pace in 16th, while Jarno Trulli was even further back in 20th, ahead of only Eddie Irvine's Jaguar and Minardi's Alex Yoong.