APRIL 23, 2005

Practice 3 & 4 - Button does it again

Jenson Button underlined the new-found performance of the BAR-Honda team with the fastest lap in morning practice at Imola on Saturday. The Englishman made it look easy as he lapped in 1m20.058s while his chasers Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen both seemed to be working hard to get their times, while Michael Schumacher was hanging in there in fourth place, but the German was clearly having to work hard to go at that sort of pace. Giancarlo Fisichella was fifth fastest ahead of Alexander Wurz in the second McLaren with the two Williams-BMWs back in the picture with Mark Webber seventh and Nick Heidfeld eighth. The top 10 was completed by Takuma Sato in his BAR-Honda and Felipe Massa in the faster of the two Saubers. The Toyotas have faded somewhat with Ralf Schumacher 11th and Jarno Trulli 13th, the pair split by Rubens Barrichello's Ferrari while David Coulthard put his Red Bull 14th, ahead of Jacques Villeneuve, who was once again overshadowed by Massa.

The two Minardis did not run in the session as the team is experiencing problems with the new cars.