Speed Quickest in Practice

The American set the quickest lap on his first flying lap and stayed ahead of the rest by slightly improving his time later in the session.

Speed, who claimed the top spot with a time of 1:26.706, was four tenths faster than Olivier Pla and Heikki Kovalainen, who set his fastest time just as the session ended.

Nelson Piquet and Giorgio Pantano were the early pacesetters behind Speed, but their times were slowly eroded by the ever-improving Pla, who built up to speed throughout the session, and a last lap effort by Kovalainen.

The final few minutes saw a flurry of off-track activity as the drivers found and passed the limits - Sergio Hernandez ran backwards into the wall with five minutes to go, before Fairuz Fauzy spun on the edge of the track, throwing up a smoke screen to his pursuers.

Nicolas Lapierre stopped on the side of the track by Hernandez's car with no obvious damage a minute later, just before Pantano clipped the kerb on the final turn, removing his front wing and throwing him across the track in a manner reminiscent of his retirement at the same spot last year while driving for Jordan in Formula One.

As always, the field was remarkably close - the first 14 drivers are covered by just one second, with second through to seventh covered by just one tenth, and the entire grid covered by just 2.1 seconds.

Pos Driver       Team                      Time              Laps
 1.  Speed       iSport International      1:26.706           16
 2.  Pla         DPR                       1:27.132 + 0.426   15
 3.  Kovalainen  Arden International       1:27.136 + 0.430   15
 4.  Bruni       Coloni Motorsport         1:27.151 + 0.445   15
 5.  Pantano     Super Nova International  1:27.191 + 0.485   12
 6.  Piquet Jr.  Hitech Piquet Sports      1:27.192 + 0.486   17
 7.  Carroll     Super Nova International  1:27.213 + 0.507   16
 8.  Rosberg     ART Grand Prix            1:27.246 + 0.540   13
 9.  Premat      ART Grand Prix            1:27.463 + 0.757   14
10.  Piccione    Durango                   1:27.537 + 0.831   18
11.  Yoshimoto   BCN Competicion           1:27.611 + 0.905   17
12.  Lapierre    Arden International       1:27.614 + 0.908   11
13.  Lopez       DAMS                      1:27.694 + 0.988   14
14.  Monfardini  Durango                   1:27.742 + 1.036   13
15.  Garcia      Racing Engineering        1:27.782 + 1.076   16
16.  Viso        BCN Competicion           1:28.029 + 1.323   13
17.  Jani        Racing Engineering        1:28.052 + 1.346   18
18.  Alvarez     Campos Racing             1:28.154 + 1.448   14
19.  Fauzy       DAMS                      1:28.231 + 1.525   16
20.  Artam       iSport International      1:28.392 + 1.686   17
21.  Hernandez   Campos Racing             1:28.555 + 1.849    9
22.  Lauda       Coloni Motorsport         1:28.672 + 1.966   15
23.  Sharp       DPR                       1:28.722 + 2.016   15
24.  Negrao      Hitech Piquet Sports      1:28.899 + 2.193   18

All timing unofficial