A productive Friday

By Karl King
March 31 2006

The usually boring and uneventful two sessions of free practice commenced today, and as usual, it was indeed broing and uneventful. McLaren are not allowed to run a Friday car, along with Renault, Ferrari and Toyota, so with test drivers topping the timesheets, the team had a smooth day.

Free Practice 1

As usual there was no familiar Sunday race face topping the timesheets as First Free Practice got underway down-under. Anthony Davidson set a good lap in his Honda. With his teams usual race drivers electing to do hardly any running, the Briton completed 26 laps and led RBR's Robert Doornbos to the limited amount of glory that topping Free Practice timesheets entails.

Jacques Villeneuve was the fastest race driver on track, he pipped Kimi Raikkonen to third, with Kimi only electing to do five laps.

The other Mercedes powered man, Juan Pablo Montoya, completed only 1 lap, thus not setting a time.

Free Practice 2

There was slightly more action at the Albert Park circuit in the second practice session, with Anthony Davidson again setting the fastest time in his Honda RA106. There was not much between himself and ex-McLaren tester Alex Wurz who placed his Cosworth powered Williams in second place.

BMW man Robert Kubica led a bunch of regular drivers, with Jenson Button, Fernando Alonso and Michael Schumacher occupying the fourth, fifth and sixth slots respectively.

Following those was Kimi Raikkonen who completed over three-fold more laps in the second session than he elected to do in the first outing. The Finn completed 16 laps with a 1m27.773 grabbing him the seventh fastest lap.

Rubens Barrichello was stuck in a McLaren sandwich, with Juan Pablo Montoya, who completed 15 laps, just behind him. The Brazilian Honda pilot, who has not had the start to the season he was dreaming of, set a fastest lap just over a tenth faster than Montoya.

Out of the 19 other drivers, unsurprsingly, the Super Aguri's rounded off the timesheets.

Team Reactions

KIMI RAIKKONEN

"A good start to the weekend where we went through everything we wanted to including our tyre evaluation with Michelin. It was a bit cooler than we expected but no problems, and I guess the temperature will stay pretty much the same for the rest of the weekend. I had a small off at one point which is what happens sometimes when you try different things, and I'm expecting the track surface to improve further as more cars run."

JUAN PABLO MONTOYA

"We completed our planned programme with no problems, and I'm pleased with the data we have achieved from our Michelin tyre evaluation. However, we still have to see how everything develops during this weekend once the track gets more grip."

RON DENNIS

"A trouble free start to the Australian Grand Prix weekend where we achieved our objectives. The variable track conditions make setting up the cars somewhat more difficult but generally we are pleased with today's outcome."

NORBERT HAUG

"A productive first practice day during which we worked on the race set-up and completed our programme as planned. Everything is OK so far."