UpdateF1 >> Formula 1 News > Prac 3: Michael on top

Schumacher leads Alonso

Today's final practice session was officially declared wet, and as a result the session was indeed very quiet up until the end. For the majority of the session, there was perhaps two or three drivers out on the track at any one time, if that, and the final times came in the last five minutes.

Various different drivers held top spot, from Ralf Schumacher to David Coulthard to Felipe Massa - even Takuma Sato came close. However it was the Ferrari of Michael Schumacher who took top spot for the final practice session in Shanghai.

Once the German took the quickest slot, he stayed there, finishing with a time of a 1:40.193. His closest rival was Fernando Alonso, but he only managed this after the session had ended. His time was a 1:40.365.

Jenson Button for Honda was third with a 1:40.590. The Toro Rosso duo were fourth and fifth quickest with Vitantonio Liuzzi (1:40.795) and Scott Speed (1:41.150).

Mark Webber was sixth quickest for Williams with a 1:41.287, Christijan Albers for Spyker MF1 was seventh (1:41.463), Giancarlo Fisichella for Renault was eighth (1:41.691), Pedro de la Rosa for McLaren was ninth (1:41.823) and David Coulthard rounded out the top ten (1:41.836).

Both Kimi Raikkonen (McLaren) and Robert Kubica (BMW Sauber) failed to set any times.

Sakon Yamamoto was doing well up until he had an incident towards the end and had to sit out the remainder of the session.

Written: Sat, 30 Sep 2006 04:52:29