McLaren Dominate Friday Practice - Fri 08th Jul 2005
McLaren test driver Pedro de la Rosa underlined the Woking team?s status as hot favourite heading into the British Grand Prix by dominating first practice at an overcast Silverstone on Friday morning.
The Spaniard moved to the top of the charts 13 minutes into the hour-long session and only ceded the position briefly when team-mate Kimi Raikkonen put in a flyer.
After lapping with exemplary consistency in the low-1m20s range, de la Rosa pumped in a 1m19.663s lap after 43 minutes and 10 minutes later improved to 1m19.205s.
That final effort left him almost a full second clear of Toyota?s Friday tester Ricardo Zonta.
Jenson Button?s home grand prix weekend got off to an encouraging start as the Briton was the fastest ?race? driver in third.
Raikkonen wound up fourth on the timesheets ahead of Toyota?s Ralf Schumacher and McLaren team-mate Juan Pablo Montoya.
Michael Schumacher was the leading Ferrari representative in seventh, with Takuma Sato (BAR), Rubens Barrichello (Ferrari) and Felipe Massa (Sauber) rounding out the top ten.
A relatively routine Friday morning session was enlivened by a couple of minor dramas.
Tiago Monteiro had a spectacular but harmless spin in the high-speed Becketts complex, and moments later Mark Webber had a big off-track excursion at the same point.
At the very end of the session Schumacher senior ? as ever taking every opportunity to test how much speed could be carried up to the pit lane speed limit line ? tagged the rear of Nick Heidfeld?s Williams.
Minardi?s Patrick Friesacher was the only mechanical casualty, pulling off at Club halfway through the session.
While McLaren took full advantage of its 'man Friday' de la Rosa, the arch-rival Renault squad did not send either of its drivers out.
Toyota's Jarno Trulli was the only other driver not to complete a flying lap.
