Friday September 13th, 2002

By Will Gray

World Champion Michael Schumacher returned to Ferrari's backyard in front of his Tifosi fans and immediately showed them the sign of things to come when he dominated Friday's opening practice session for this weekend's Italian Grand Prix.

German Schumacher has continually claimed this weekend will be "a tough one" for Ferrari and said he expects a strong challenge from Williams-BMW - but he still finished 0.799 seconds faster than their leading driver, second placed Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya.

In a session with little incident run in overcast conditions with temperatures of just 16 degrees Celsius, Schumacher's time of 1:22.869 was just six tenths slower than Montoya's pole position time from last year.

German Ralf Schumacher claimed third in the second Williams-BMW, four tenths of a second behind teammate Montoya, while Spaniard Pedro de la Rosa and Ulsterman Eddie Irvine showed the long straights on the Monza circuit could suit their Jaguar cars by finishing fourth and sixth respectively.

Italian Jarno Trulli, in the leading Renault, clocked fifth fastest time, with Felipe Massa in the Sauber seventh, followed by the McLaren-Mercedes pair Briton David Coulthard and Finn Kimi Raikkonen in eighth and ninth and Frenchman Olivier Panis completing the top ten.

Pos  Driver        Team                   Time                    Laps
 1.  M.Schumacher  Ferrari           (B)  1:22.869  251.225 km/h  17  
 2.  Montoya       Williams BMW      (M)  1:23.668    +    0.799  15  
 3.  R.Schumacher  Williams BMW      (M)  1:24.115    +    1.246  13  
 4.  de la Rosa    Jaguar Cosworth   (M)  1:24.281    +    1.412  15  
 5.  Trulli        Renault           (M)  1:24.800    +    1.931  17  
 6.  Irvine        Jaguar Cosworth   (M)  1:24.805    +    1.936  16  
 7.  Massa         Sauber Petronas   (B)  1:24.929    +    2.060  15  
 8.  Coulthard     McLaren Mercedes  (M)  1:25.044    +    2.175  16  
 9.  Raikkonen     McLaren Mercedes  (M)  1:25.061    +    2.192  16  
10.  Panis         BAR Honda         (B)  1:25.156    +    2.287  21  
11.  Button        Renault           (M)  1:25.196    +    2.327  18  
12.  Salo          Toyota            (M)  1:25.270    +    2.401  16  
13.  Fisichella    Jordan Honda      (B)  1:25.566    +    2.697  16  
14.  Sato          Jordan Honda      (B)  1:25.820    +    2.951  17  
15.  Villeneuve    BAR Honda         (B)  1:25.929    +    3.060  12  
16.  Heidfeld      Sauber Petronas   (B)  1:26.020    +    3.151  16  
17.  McNish        Toyota            (M)  1:26.126    +    3.257  13  
18.  Yoong         Minardi Asiatech  (M)  1:27.106    +    4.237  17  
19.  Webber        Minardi Asiatech  (M)  1:27.453    +    4.584  18  
20.  Barrichello   Ferrari           (B)  1:50.300    +   27.431   2  

All Timing Unofficial

Published at 10:03:32 GMT

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