UpdateF1 >> Formula 1 News > Ferrari dominate final practice

McLaren close behind

Kimi Raikkonen turned the tables on yesterdays practice to set a blistering speed ahead of today's vital qualifying session.

The Ferrari man set the fastest time of the weekend with a 1:46.137, to finish fractions ahead of team mate Felipe Massa. The McLaren duo of Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton were not far behind to hopefully set up a terrific battle in qualifying and the race.

Heikki Kovalainen in the first of the Renaults was best of the rest, but only after a real slow start that saw him 10 seconds behind at one stage. Jarno Trulli showed that Toyota is once again making improvements towards the end of the season, but they will still be ruing the fact that they cannot start the season out in front.

The first of the Williams in the capable hands of Nico Rosberg was just slightly behind the Toyota as they set about gaining more points to beat its engine partner. Nick Heidfeld was the first BMW home but is in an unfamiliar position being down in eighth. His team mate however did not have such a good session, with Robert Kubica not managing to complete a lap.

Ralf Schumacher in the second Toyota was next home in ninth, just fractions behind the BMW and Mark Webber in the Red Bull was just behind him, showing that the midfield battle will also be very intriguing tomorrow.

Next home in 11th was the second Renault of Giancarlo Fisichella who also struggled to record decent lap times at the start, but ended up just 0.03 behind Webber. There was a small gap of .2 seconds between Fisichella and the next man home in Jenson Button. Honda had hoped to make improvements and while they are not far off the pace, they are still down the running order.

Scotsman David Coulthard was 13th and fractions behind Button in his Red Bull, with rising star Sebastian Vettel in the Toro Rosso just .03 behind him. Alex Wurz piloting the second Williams was also in tight being another .07 off the back of Vettel.

Super Aguri driver Takuma Sato was two seconds off the pace down in 16th as he lead home the rest of the pack which included Tonio Liuzzi, Adrian Sutil in the first of the Spykers, Rubens Barrichello in a slow Honda, Anthony Davidson in an equally slow Super Aguri and the final Spyker of Sakon Yamamoto. Yamamoto was impressive early in the session as he was keeping pace with the front runners. This was before he had an incident which brought out yellow flags with around 10 minutes left.

All in all it looks like a fantastic fight for positions one-four and four-eight.

Written: Sat, 15 Sep 2007 10:13:53