Webber Fastest in Practice 4

Australian Webber, who has not figured in the leading times over most of the weekend, pulled out a surprise when he set a time of 1:29.527 to put himself 0.184 seconds clear of Toyota driver Ralf Schumacher.

But the session was a disappointment for World Champion Michael Schumacher, who had finished fastest in the first morning run, when he finished down in ninth position, a little more than half a second off the pace.

Giancarlo Fisichella and Fernando Alonso finished third and sixth respectively in the Renault cars with Jarno Trulli fourth in the second Toyota and Kimi Raikkonen fifth for McLaren.

Spaniard Pedro de la Rosa, substituting for ill Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya, finished seventh with Austrian Christian Klien eighth for Red Bull and German Nick Heidfeld, in the second Williams, completing the top ten.

Tiago Montiero spun his Jordan at turn ten, as did Ralf Schumacher, who returned to the pits with badly flat-spotted tyres while his brother Michael had to be pushed back into the garage after stopping in the pitlane.

Jenson Button was the early session leader but his time was surpassed by Raikkonen with 20 minutes to go as the McLaren driver became the first man to ever get into the 1:29s at the Sakhir circuit.

Trulli then went faster still in the Toyota but his teammate Ralf Schumacher, who has been struggling for much of the weekend, found his pace and put himself ahead at the top by 0.087 seconds.

With five minutes to go the top four drivers - Schumacher, Fisichella, who had slotted into second, Trulli and Raikkonen - were covered by less than a tenth of a second with the top seven covered by less than a quarter of a second.

Ferrari driver Rubens Barrichello was forced to sit out the second session, as he had the first, after the team had made a temporary repair to a gearbox problem to allow him to put in a run in first qualifying.

Pos  Driver        Team                  Time                  Laps
 1.  Webber        Williams-BMW      (M)  1:29.527               10
 2.  R.Schumacher  Toyota            (M)  1:29.711  +    0.184   12
 3.  Fisichella    Renault           (M)  1:29.738  +    0.211   15
 4.  Trulli        Toyota            (M)  1:29.798  +    0.271   12
 5.  Raikkonen     McLaren-Mercedes  (M)  1:29.810  +    0.283   10
 6.  Alonso        Renault           (M)  1:29.825  +    0.298   12
 7.  de la Rosa    McLaren-Mercedes  (M)  1:29.864  +    0.337   10
 8.  Klien         Red Bull-Cosworth (M)  1:29.896  +    0.369   11
 9.  M.Schumacher  Ferrari           (B)  1:30.080  +    0.553    8
10.  Heidfeld      Williams-BMW      (M)  1:30.290  +    0.763    6
11.  Button        BAR-Honda         (M)  1:30.324  +    0.797   12
12.  Coulthard     Red Bull-Cosworth (M)  1:30.558  +    1.031   11
13.  Sato          BAR-Honda         (M)  1:30.902  +    1.375   15
14.  Massa         Sauber-Petronas   (M)  1:31.001  +    1.474   11
15.  Villeneuve    Sauber-Petronas   (M)  1:31.126  +    1.599   12
16.  Karthikeyan   Jordan-Toyota     (B)  1:32.498  +    2.971   10
17.  Monteiro      Jordan-Toyota     (B)  1:32.686  +    3.159   12
18.  Albers        Minardi-Cosworth  (B)  1:33.715  +    4.188   12
19.  Friesacher    Minardi-Cosworth  (B)  1:34.409  +    4.882   12
20.  Barrichello   Ferrari           (B)  No Time                  

All timing unofficial