MARCH 5, 2005

A hint of things to come

The third practice session for the Australian Grand Prix gave us a good indication of the speed of the current F1 cars in relation to one another with Kimi Raikkonen emerging fastest in his McLaren with a lap of 1m27.297s. The track was damp and drying in the morning session and so the times are probably not as quick as they will be this afternoon when first qualifying begins. Second fastest was the Renault of Fernando Alonso a tenth slower and then there was a big gap to Juan Pablo Montoya in the second McLaren, nine-tenths of a second behind Alonso. Then came Giancarlo Fisichella (Renault), Jenson Button (BAR-Honda), Mark Webber (Williams-BMW), Michael Schumacher (Ferrari), Takuma Sato (BAR-Honda), David Coulthard (Red Bull) and Rubens Barrichello (Ferrari).

The two Minardis finally appeared after all the problems in the last couple of days. They were running in 2005 spec and ended up quicker than the two Jordans which were well off the pace.