1-2 for Ferrari

In a thrilling practice session full of action from start to finish, Michael Schumacher has headed a Ferrari 1-2 to set up an enticing battle for qualifying this afternoon. The German set a top time of 1:30.788 to pip his team-mate Felipe Massa by 0.3 seconds. Massa himself was stuck in the middle of a Schumacher sandwich as Ralf set the third fastest time for Toyota having languished down near the bottom of the times for most of the session.

Jacques Villeneuve was fourth fastest for BMW Sauber continuing the developing promise the squad is starting to show, while the Renault F1 Team had to make do with fifth and sixth this morning with Giancarlo 0.7 seconds and Fernando one second off Schumacher’s pace.

Jenson Button wound up seventh for Honda, just ahead of Christian Klien’s Red Bull. The Austrian is doing much to shoot down talk that he is not up to the pace of his far more experienced team-mate David Coulthard. With Klien’s seat thought to be under threat for 2007, he is pulling out all the stops to show he deserves his place. The man widely believed to be most likely to replace Klien at Red Bull in 2007 should the Austrian be forced to make way, Tonio Liuzzi, again showed why he is rated so highly by the team, as he set the ninth fastest lap, just one tenth of a second down on Klien for Toro Rosso. Liussi had led the session with ten minutes to go, after a sensational lap deposed the then-leading Alonso from top spot.

Kimi Raikkonen was tenth on a comparably shocking morning for McLaren which saw the Finn’s team-mate Montoya down in 17th place.

Moving on to qualifying this afternoon, it is hard to see it being anything but a battle between Ferrari and the Renault F1 Team. With Toyota ad BMW sniffing around, things could be very interesting under the sunny German skies.