Warm-up: Schuey quick, Rubens spins

The Brazilian's mistake at the penultimate corner was one of the few incidents of the half-hour session. Barrichello had jumped to the top of the times, at the expense of Schumacher, with five minutes to go when he punched in a lap of 1m17.000s. But a few minutes later he snatched the front left brake of his Ferrari, lost the rear and spun into a gravel trap. There was no way of driving out of that.

His mistake left the path clear for Schumacher to slot in a time of 1m16.864s just before the chequered flag.

Kimi Raikkonen's McLaren was third fastest, but that will be a very minor consolation to the Finn who will start the race way back in 11th place, one position behind his team-mate David Coulthard. The Scot was eighth fastest in the warm-up.

The Jordan-Hondas of Giancarlo Fisichella and Takuma Sato were fourth and fifth ahead of the first Williams of Ralf Schumacher. He was another driver to make an error, braking late for the first corner and running off the road.

His team-mate Juan Pablo Montoya was only 16th fastest.