Despite the fact they were both outside the top ten on today’s final free practice time sheet, both Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro drivers felt there is more to come over the rest of this Iberian weekend.

Michael and Rubens both believe that, in race trim, the whole car- engine-tyre package will be very competitive come Sunday afternoon, with the major challenge for tomorrow being the need to be equally on the pace for the one single lap in the first qualifying session.

Although the Brazilian suffered an hydraulic problem in the morning which saw him stuck in the pits for much of the session, he made up for it in the afternoon, putting in 22 laps, the same number as his German team-mate. So, plenty of data is available for further tuning in tomorrow morning’s final free practice session.

McLaren-Mercedes’ Friday man, Pedro de la Rosa was quickest on home turf, eight places higher than the man all the crowd had come to see: Renault’s Fernando Alonso. With Kimi Raikkonen fourth, it seems that Michael Schumacher’s prediction from yesterday that McLaren-Mercedes would be quick here, is correct. However, not everything went to plan for the Anglo-German squad, as Montoya, making his comeback after missing two races with a shoulder injury, had a heavy crash at Turn 9 in the closing moments of the session, damaging the right hand side of the car.

Second fastest was Toyota’s third man, Ricardo Zonta, ahead of the Williams-BMW of Nick Heidfeld. The German will drop ten places from his qualifying position on the grid, as he will have a fresh engine as from tomorrow. His team-mate Mark Webber did not run today, as he too is due to get a new engine and by not running today, he thus avoids any penalty. Jarno Trulli is fifth for Toyota and David Coulthard rounding off the top six for Red Bull Racing.

Two other cars are missing from the time sheet, as BAR-Honda decided to take no further legal action to counter their two race ban. There is now a big empty space in the paddock, as the team’s trucks have already left for home.

Jean Todt : “Today’s programme followed the usual pattern, concentrating mainly on finding the best set-up for the car and choosing which type of tyre to use for qualifying and the race. At this track, the tyres play an even more important role than elsewhere. Going on what we have seen in the two hours of running today, we must analyse all our data to do the best possible job of preparing the cars.
 

"We can expect a very close fought weekend and, as usual, we will tackle it with great determination as we strive to get the best possible result.”

Rubens Barrichello : “I did not run much this morning because of a hydraulic problem with the car, which was then identified and solved. In the afternoon, I did some good runs which produced plenty of useful data. I think that overall, we are not in as bad shape as seems to be the case if you just look at the times. We know what small changes we can make to the car to be much stronger. As usual on a Friday, we don’t really know what the opposition has done, so it is hard to get a clear picture of the situation. I am optimistic because the situation is quite similar to Imola, in that we can expect to have a very competitive car for the race.”

Michael Schumacher : “Our performance today did not look very promising. We must now analyse all the data to see in what areas we can improve the car. Tomorrow morning’s work will involve the usual job of finding the right compromise between being quick over a single lap for qualifying and being able to maintain a strong race pace. We did plenty of laps today, so we have all the data we need to achieve that.”

Ross Brawn : “We had some technical problems today, which slowed our programme slightly. But the team recovered well and we made up for lost time in the afternoon. I hope the rest of the weekend goes smoothly. We did the usual comparison between the two types of Bridgestone tyre and I think it is pretty clear which way we have to go. I think we can have a good race pace. The challenge will be in doing a similarly good first qualifying lap and work on that will start tomorrow morning.”

Free practice - First session: Michael Schumacher: 4th 1.22.085 14 laps chassis 245; Rubens Barrichello: 11th 1.23.797 10 laps chassis 246; Temperatures: air 21/23 °C, track 27/32 °C

Free practice – Second session: Rubens Barrichello: 11th 1.17.702 22 laps chassis 246; Michael Schumacher: 13th 1.18.042 22 laps chassis 245; Temperatures: air 25/27 °C, track 36/39 °C