Schumacher fastest in Spain once again
World champion Michael Schumacher is quietly confident of a fourth win in five races after ramming home Ferrari's dominance with the fastest lap in Friday's practice for the Spanish Grand Prix.
The German lapped in one minute 20.380 seconds on a bright afternoon in Barcelona, 0.070 of a second faster than Germany's Heinz-Harald Frentzen in a surprisingly quick Arrows.
Briton Jenson Button was third in a Renault, although he said the car was difficult to drive. Five of the top six were using Bridgestone tyres.
While times tell only part of the story with teams testing different settings and running various fuel loads, Schumacher was clearly happy with his day's work.
"At the moment all I can say is that it seems quite good, even if we cannot be sure of what programme our opponents were running," said the four times world champion.
"First impressions confirm the findings we made at our test sessions here over the past few weeks. All in all, we can be reasonably confident about tomorrow's qualifying."
The times were well off last year's pole time of 1:18.201, set by Schumacher, but are likely to be considerably faster on Saturday.
Schumacher was gifted a win last year in Barcelona when Mika Hakkinen's McLaren failed on the last lap, and has been on pole for the past two seasons.
The champion leads his younger brother Ralf, 15th fastest on Friday in a Williams, by 14 points in the standings after a Ferrari one-two finish with Brazilian Rubens Barrichello in the last race in Italy.
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Barrichello was fourth fastest on Friday.
"I am not yet completely happy with the set-up we have come up with for my car, but we have plenty of time to improve and to be ready for qualifying," he said.
The two Ferraris covered more laps than any other team, a total of 87 compared to McLaren's 66, on a circuit familiar to all from frequent testing there during the year.
Williams, the team that has mounted the strongest challenge to Ferrari's domination so far this season, were well down the order and Ralf said the circuit really didn't suit his car.
"I am not happy with the set-up of the car as my times clearly show," added Ralf's team mate, Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya. "We have several areas we need to work on in order to sort out our problems."
McLaren also appeared to be having a hard time, with David Coulthard 12th and Kimi Raikkonen seventh.
"We are really struggling to find the same level of balance that we were able to achieve in our pre-season testing," said team principal Ron Dennis.
Jordan, who have yet to score a point and cut their workforce on Tuesday, had a mixed day with Japanese rookie Takuma Sato pulling over only seconds into the first session with an engine problem.
But Italian team mate Giancarlo Fisichella was eighth fastest and sounded more confident.
Malaysian Alex Yoong, who failed to qualify his Minardi at Imola two weeks ago, was the slowest driver, running off the track and also spinning in the morning.
