Wurz Quickest in Practice 1

Austrian Wurz finished with a time of 1:11.701 to put himself more than one second ahead of the chasing pack, but behind him new updates from BAR and Renault look set to pitch the pair into a battle to be best of the rest.

Takuma Sato, who was told earlier this week he will no longer have a drive at BAR-Honda next year, finished second to push Championship-chasing Spaniard Fernando Alonso, of Renault, down to third.

Both teams have brought significant updates to their cars and Briton Jenson Button proved BAR could be challengers for a podium when he finished fourth fastest.

Kimi Raikkonen, who needs to win on Sunday to keep alive any slim hope of securing the title, finished down in fifth place with Giancarlo Fisichella sixth for Renault and Juan Pablo Montoya seventh for McLaren.

Antonio Pizzonia gave his home fans a boost when he finished as the fastest Brazilian, bringing his Williams in eight fastest and just beating Australian teammate Mark Webber, who finished ninth.

Brazilian Ricardo Zonta completed the top ten runners in his Toyota while home hope Rubens Barrichello, who has started from pole here in the last two races, finished 13th, and Felipe Massa failed to put in a timed run.

The day began in bright sunshine and temperatures of 25 degrees Celsius and after a typically uneventful first 25 minutes Wurz was on top of the times then continued to lead the way for the rest of the incident-free session.

Pos  Driver        Team                   Time                  Laps
 1.  Wurz          McLaren-Mercedes  (M)  1:11.701               25
 2.  Sato          BAR-Honda         (M)  1:12.738  +    1.037   17
 3.  Alonso        Renault           (M)  1:12.782  +    1.081   10
 4.  Button        BAR-Honda         (M)  1:12.918  +    1.217   12
 5.  Raikkonen     McLaren-Mercedes  (M)  1:13.065  +    1.364    7
 6.  Fisichella    Renault           (M)  1:13.094  +    1.393   10
 7.  Montoya       McLaren-Mercedes  (M)  1:13.256  +    1.555    6
 8.  Pizzonia      Williams-BMW      (M)  1:13.427  +    1.726    4
 9.  Webber        Williams-BMW      (M)  1:13.509  +    1.808    4
10.  Zonta         Toyota            (M)  1:13.573  +    1.872   31
11.  R.Schumacher  Toyota            (M)  1:13.788  +    2.087    6
12.  M.Schumacher  Ferrari           (B)  1:14.154  +    2.453   10
13.  Barrichello   Ferrari           (B)  1:14.282  +    2.581   10
14.  Klien         Red Bull-Cosworth (M)  1:14.468  +    2.767    7
15.  Trulli        Toyota            (M)  1:14.504  +    2.803    6
16.  Coulthard     Red Bull-Cosworth (M)  1:14.724  +    3.023    7
17.  Liuzzi        Red Bull-Cosworth (M)  1:14.842  +    3.141   28
18.  Villeneuve    Sauber-Petronas   (M)  1:15.211  +    3.510   14
19.  Karthikeyan   Jordan-Toyota     (B)  1:16.230  +    4.529   14
20.  Monteiro      Jordan-Toyota     (B)  1:16.230  +    4.529   15
21.  Kiesa         Jordan-Toyota     (B)  1:16.351  +    4.650   23
22.  Doornbos      Minardi-Cosworth  (B)  1:16.769  +    5.068   12
23.  Albers        Minardi-Cosworth  (B)  1:17.180  +    5.479    8
24.  Massa         Sauber-Petronas   (M)  No Time                 5

All timing unofficial