Although there are still two days of the Brazilian Grand Prix to go, Alex Wurz at least gave Cosworth some degree of honour before the British company bows out of
Formula One, topping the Friday practice times for
Williams.
After
Kimi Raikkonen's unexpected interruption in the morning session, Wurz and the other test drivers set the record straight after lunch, annexing the top three spots and all running around a second faster than the Finn had managed. Wurz's best time - a 1min 12.547secs effort set in the course of 33 laps - proved to be 1.2secs faster than Raikkonen's earlier benchmark, with
Anthony Davidson also going a second faster and
Sebastian Vettel all but doing so as they dominated the session.
Between them, the three reserves - the regular pacesetters on a Friday of late - racked up 103 laps, as each recorded personal tallies over 30.
Red Bull Racing's Michael Ammermuller was the only other man to reach as high, although several others managed high 20s during a busy final session.
Raikkonen barely managed to make the top ten in a session that saw all 29 drivers present set a time, and claimed only ninth spot, which left his only fifth fastest amongst the race regulars. Leading the was for the Sunday corps was
Jarno Trulli who, along with seventh-placed
Ralf Schumacher, gave
Toyota extra encouragement. The Italian's fourth fastest time edged
Honda rival
Jenson Button by 0.002secs.
Michael Schumacher won the first battle of the title contenders - and the German may well take every little success he can get as the odds remain stacked against him in the bigger picture - claiming sixth spot while
Fernando Alonso managed tenth. Given the closely-matched field, however, only a tenth separated the pair, despite having Ralf,
Super Aguri's Franck Montagny and Raikkonen between them.
