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Wurz Quickest in Practice 2 - Bahrain

Alex Wurz put McLaren on top of the pile after Friday's practice sessions for the Bahrain Grand Prix as World Champions Ferrari failed to shine with their all-new F2005 machine

Ferrari gave their new car its debut in Friday morning's practice session and saw World Champion Michael Schumacher finish second behind Toyota test driver Ricardo Zonta but he could only manage fifth best time in the afternoon.

Wurz blitzed the times from the morning session with a lap of 1:30.695 to finish 1.274 seconds ahead of closest challenger Fernando Alonso, of Spain, who won the last race in Malaysia for Renault

Vitantonio Liuzzi finished third for Red Bull Racing with Pedro de la Rosa, who has moved into McLaren's race team to replace Juan Pablo Montoya, in fourth place just ahead of Schumacher.

Jarno Trulli finished sixth with Giancarlo Fisichella, the winner of the season-opening race in Australia, seventh more than two seconds off the pace in his Renault.

Kimi Raikkonen finished eight in the third McLaren with Jenson Button, of BAR-Honda, ninth and Ralf Schumacher tenth for Toyota as cars and drivers endured temperatures of 38 degrees Celsius.

Wurz led the times early on before Raikkonen took over at the top of the times and Schumacher, out early in the new F2005, pushed hard on his first flying lap to slot into second.

Trulli then moved into the top place by just two thousandths of a second as the top four runners, Trulli, Raikkonen, Michael Schumacher and de la Rosa, were covered by less than one tenth of a second.

Wurz then raised the bar hugely when he set a time exactly 2.6 seconds faster than any of his rivals to break the previous best time of the weekend set in the morning by Zonta.

Dutchman Robert Doornbos had a trip across the grass in his Jordan and both Ralf and Michael Schumacher briefly ran wide before Takuma Sato stopped at turn eight with an apparent mechanical failure.

Ralf Schumacher had trouble adjusting to the slippery Bahrain circuit and went wide at turn one and turn ten and also spun his Toyota at turn one before setting a strong lap at the end of the session.

Michael Schumacher appeared to be struggling with the new Ferrari having only tested it for the first time last week and he locked up his tyres several times on several different laps.

Rubens Barrichello, who had set the fifth fastest time in the first session with his new F2005, failed to even venture out on the track in the second hour and sat watching from the pit wall for most of the session.

Pos  Driver        Team                   Time                 Laps
 1.  Wurz          McLaren-Mercedes  (M)  1:30.695              20   
 2.  Alonso        Renault           (M)  1:31.969  +    1.274  24 
 3.  Liuzzi        Red Bull-Cosworth (M)  1:32.319  +    1.624  30   
 4.  de la Rosa    McLaren-Mercedes  (M)  1:32.333  +    1.638  13 
 5.  M.Schumacher  Ferrari           (B)  1:32.431  +    1.736  16 
 6.  Trulli        Toyota            (M)  1:32.595  +    1.900  22 
 7.  Fisichella    Renault           (M)  1:32.708  +    2.013  24 
 8.  Raikkonen     McLaren-Mercedes  (M)  1:32.988  +    2.293  18 
 9.  Button        BAR-Honda         (M)  1:33.037  +    2.342  23 
10.  R.Schumacher  Toyota            (M)  1:33.077  +    2.382  19 
11.  Heidfeld      Williams-BMW      (M)  1:33.152  +    2.457  20 
12.  Sato          BAR-Honda         (M)  1:33.205  +    2.510  13 
13.  Klien         Red Bull-Cosworth (M)  1:33.436  +    2.741  25 
14.  Zonta         Toyota            (M)  1:33.443  +    2.748  11 
15.  Webber        Williams-BMW      (M)  1:33.563  +    2.868  16 
16.  Coulthard     Red Bull-Cosworth (M)  1:33.708  +    3.013  21 
17.  Massa         Sauber-Petronas   (M)  1:33.726  +    3.031  18 
18.  Karthikeyan   Jordan-Toyota     (B)  1:33.981  +    3.286  16 
19.  Doornbos      Jordan-Toyota     (B)  1:34.222  +    3.527  26 
20.  Villeneuve    Sauber-Petronas   (M)  1:34.300  +    3.605  19 
21.  Monteiro      Jordan-Toyota     (B)  1:34.727  +    4.032  18 
22.  Friesacher    Minardi-Cosworth  (B)  1:35.325  +    4.630  21 
23.  Albers        Minardi-Cosworth  (B)  1:36.094  +    5.399  22 
24.  Barrichello   Ferrari           (B)  No Time                  

All timing unofficial

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