Monaco: Saturday Practice.

By Nick Sparkes
May 22 2005

After a disappointing start to the weekend, Toyota's Ralf Schumacher was the first to put his car into the top three, but Jarno Trulli was never that far behind.

During both sessions the team improved on their performance from Thursday to drag their cars into the top six by the end. The first session saw Ralf go third fastest, the highest of the Toyota's. Jarno Trulli finished the session back down in eleventh around two seconds behind the German.

But, in the final session of the day Jarno found a clear piece of track to go fourth fastest, whereas Ralf Schumacher finished up in sixth. Ralf's day came to a sudden end when he was involved in a four car pile-up minutes before the end of the session. It was rumoured McLaren's Juan Pablo Montoya brake tested the Toyota driver, leaving Red Bull's David Coulthard and Sauber's Jacques Villeneuve with no where to go. Whilst the McLaren left the accident undamaged, the other three either limped back to the pits or retired on the spot. Ralf Schumacher later commented: "I stayed well within the yellow lines and for whatever reason I held him up. Basically he brake tested me, and held me up. I am sure he didn't believe someone could crash but it just wasn't necessary." The Stewards are still looking into the incident.