The unusually hot weather continued in the Eifel mountains today, with temperatures creeping up over the 20 Celsius mark and there was also an unusual look to the time sheet at the end of the first day of free practice for the European Grand Prix.

Alex Wurz, who this year has switched from being McLaren's third driver to fulfilling the same task for Williams, was quickest and the only man to get under the 1m 33 second barrier around the Nürburgring track. Second and third places went to the two men who brought the San Marino Grand Prix to life a fortnight ago, except that this time Fernando Alonso in his Renault lapped quicker than Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro's Michael Schumacher.

A surprising fourth was Red Bull Racing's third driver, Robert Doornbos, evidently running low fuel as his two race driver colleagues, Klien and Coulthard were much further back in 18th and 19th places respectively. Fifth was the man who used to monopolise the Friday Number One slot, Anthony Davidson in the Honda, while Ralf Schumacher rounded off the top six for Toyota. In the second Ferrari, Felipe Massa was fourteenth, but having worked to a different programme to his team-mate, was not particularly giving too much importance to his lap time or position, while being happy with the handling of his car by the end of the day.

One new name on the time sheets today was Franck Montagny. Formerly a Friday test driver for Renault, the Frenchman has replaced Ide in the Super Aguri-Honda team as the FIA recommended to the team that they give Ide more testing time in the car to allow the Japanese driver better to adapt to Formula 1. Montagny finished the day 27th out of 28.

Jean Todt: "At the risk of sounding repetitive, I have to say this was just the usual Friday during which the team worked on the comparison of the two types of tyre brought here by Bridgestone and on defining the best settings on the car for the race. We acquired some interesting data, which will now be evaluated by the engineers to make all the necessary choices for the rest of the Grand Prix. From what we have seen so far, we can say that our chassis, engine and Bridgestone tyre package, should allow us to be competitive."
 

Michael Schumacher: "We had a good day and I am reasonably happy with the car. We are more or less where we expected to be. Looking at the times, the situation seems quite good. I opted for just one type of tyre for this first day of free practice, working only on this and the choice seemed to be the best one. Our main rivals also seem very strong, so I think it will be a very close fight. We are confident and from what we have seen, we are also competitive here. If we can put all the pieces of the jigsaw together then we can fight for the win."

Felipe Massa: "As usual, today was spent mainly comparing the two types of tyre Bridgestone has brought here for us and on finding the best set-up on the 248 F1. Michael and I split the work load, each trying a different type of tyre. Overall, I am reasonably happy with the way things went this afternoon and we now have a lot of data to study. We know we have a good potential and we have to try and improve the car for qualifying and most of all, for the race."

Ross Brawn: "Getting the car balanced was a bit tricky at first, but I think both race engineers did a good job with their drivers to improve the situation, to the extent that, come the end of the second hour, both Michael and Felipe were happy. The two drivers used different tyre types so as to get as much data as possible to work with from this afternoon onwards. Basically, the cars seem to be competitive and we are confident for the rest of the weekend."

Free practice - First session: Michael Schumacher: 4th 1.32.858 4 laps chassis 254 Felipe Massa: - - - chassis 250 Temperatures: air 17/18 °C, track 23/26 °C; Free practice - Second session: Michael Schumacher: 3rd 1.33.619 14 laps chassis 254 Felipe Massa: 14th 1.34.546 18 laps chassis 250 Temperatures: air 20 °C, track 32/31 °C