European GP – Strange weather, strange time sheet

Nurburg – 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 Nurburgring 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 monopolies 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 program 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- Franck Montagny. Formerly a Friday driver for Renault, the Frenchman has replaced Ide in the Midland F1 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. Ferrari