Full Throttle

It is often said that free practice on the Friday of a grand prix meeting is worthless when it comes to predicting results, and the rest of the 2004 Formula One field had better hope that belief holds true after Ferrari, Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello lapped almost two seconds faster than anyone else in session one at the Australian Grand Prix.

Against expectations, the world champion was among the first cars out on track at Albert Park, with mainly the third drivers now allowed to the ‘bottom’ six teams from 2004 venturing out earlier than the German.

Anthony Davidson (BAR), Ricardo Zonta (Toyota) and Timo Glock were the first to show, along with the German’s new Jordan team-mate Giorgio Pantano, who was eager to add to his limited pre-season mileage. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, Zonta set the early pace, duelling with Davidson for the honour of topping the times before the big guns emerged.

Even before the action had got underway in earnest, however, the red flags came out as Sauber returnee Felipe Massa began his F1 comeback by stopping out on track. The Brazilian was sidelined by a technical problem, but the session was delayed for a good ten minutes while the clear-up operation commenced.

Jenson Button was the first of the big names to appear on track, but was closely followed by Schumacher and Fernando Alonso. The Spaniard almost instantly leapt to the head of the times, but was quickly put in his place by the man he is tipped to replace at Ferrari in the next few years. Schumacher’s opening salvo of 1min 26.2secs was already quicker than the fastest mark recorded in the equivalent session twelve months earlier - and was fully 2.6secs faster than Alonso’s effort.

The world champion went even faster before anyone looked like matching him - and even then that man was Ferrari team-mate Rubens Barrichello, who warmed up with a 1min 29secs effort that matched just about half the field before banging in a 1min 25secs lap to go second behind Schumacher.

Behind the two scarlet F2004s, the Renaults, Williams-BMWs and Button’s BAR-Honda scrapped for the already ‘minor’ places, with Jarno Trulli, joining the fray later than Alonso, eventually claiming third spot. The regie appeared to be on for a 3-4 ‘result’ in the session, only for David Coulthard to belatedly start McLaren’s season, jumping from the lower reaches into fourth in the closing stages of the session.

Alonso ultimately claimed fifth for Renault, edging out Williams twins Juan Montoya and Ralf Schumacher, after the Colombian found time on his final run. Button continued to maintain BAR’s presence among the top teams, trailing Schumacher Jr by a mere tenth, while Honda power also took an impressive ninth with Davidson.

Mark Webber rounded out the top ten on home soil, but only after a later start for the Jaguar team. New team-mate Christian Klien did not take advantage of the track time on offer to him, the ‘one engine’ rule persuading Jaguar to keep its race car mileage to a minimum as tester Bjorn Wirdheim conducted the early running. The Swede eventually annexed 18th spot - one place and one-hundredth of a second quicker than fellow rookie Klien.

Elsewhere, Zonta out-paced both regular Toyota drivers, taking eleventh against Olivier Panis’ 14th and Cristiano da Matta’s 16th, while Kimi Raikkonen slipped down the order after appearing inside the top five, to eventually claim twelfth spot, one ahead of Takuma Sato.

After Massa’s problem, Giancarlo Fisichella was the best placed Sauber, in 15th, while the man he swapped seats with during the winter - Nick Heidfeld - claimed top spot among Jordan’s trio, in 17th. Team-mates Pantano and Glock took 20th and 21st in their first F1 session.

Finally, over at Minardi, Zsolt Baumgartner found a late lap improvement to put one over on more highly-rated team-mate Gianmaria Bruni as the pair fought over the 22nd spot permitted by Massa’s early exit.

Source: CrashNet