France on top but hits trouble

But it wasn't all plain sailing for the French team this time, as Nicolas Lapierre crawled into the pits in the final moments of the session with the car jammed in fourth gear.

"We had some sort of clutch or gearbox problem, maybe it's the electronics, but hopefully the mechanics will be able to fix it," he said.

Great Britain rose to second fastest, with Robbie Kerr just 0.067s off Lapierre's pace in his Arden-run car. Jos Verstappen jumped to third fastest for the Netherlands, ahead of another ex-F1 racer, Ralph Firman, who was again strong in his Team Ireland car.

Italy's Enrico Toccacelo was fifth quickest, ahead of Germany's Adrian Sutil.

Portugal's Alvaro Parente, usually a frontrunner, was down in 21st following a spin.

Pos  Team             Driver              Time              Laps
 1.  France           Nicolas Lapierre    1:45.676           18
 2.  Great Britain    Robbie Kerr         1:45.743  + 0.067  19
 3.  Netherlands      Jos Verstappen      1:45.808  + 0.132  22
 4.  Ireland          Ralph Firman        1:45.999  + 0.323  22
 5.  Italy            Enrico Toccacelo    1:46.047  + 0.371  18
 6.  Germany          Adrian Sutil        1:46.154  + 0.478  20
 7.  Mexico           Salvador Duran      1:46.182  + 0.506  19
 8.  Brazil           Nelson Piquet Jr    1:46.206  + 0.530  21
 9.  Japan            Hayanari Shimoda    1:46.283  + 0.607  20
10.  Switzerland      Neel Jani           1:46.322  + 0.646  21
11.  Pakistan         Adam Khan           1:46.391  + 0.715  19
12.  Czech Republic   Tomas Enge          1:46.521  + 0.845  19
13.  South Africa     Stephen Simpson     1:46.568  + 0.892  19
14.  USA              Philip Giebler      1:46.573  + 0.897  18
15.  Malaysia         Alex Yoong          1:46.581  + 0.905  20
16.  Canada           Sean Mcintosh       1:46.613  + 0.937  20
17.  India            Armaan Ebrahim      1:46.774  + 1.098  24
18.  Indonesia        Ananda Mikola       1:46.783  + 1.107  16
19.  China            Tengyi Jiang        1:46.802  + 1.126  18
20.  New Zealand      Matt Halliday       1:46.841  + 1.165  21
21.  Portugal         Alvaro Parente      1:46.949  + 1.273  17
22.  Australia        Will Davison        1:47.106  + 1.430  22
23.  Austria          Mathias Lauda       1:47.129  + 1.453  20
24.  Lebanon          Basil Shaaban       1:47.179  + 1.503  24