Testing session for new Minardi.

After hours of sweat and tears, the workforce at Minardi was finally able to watch the product of its labours take to the track in anger for the first time at Imola this morning, as Christijan Albers wheeled the first PS05-Cosworth out of the pits at the start of the San Marino Grand Prix weekend.

The second car, itself the product of late nights since chassis 001 hit the track for testing a week ago, followed its sister out of the garage a matter of minutes later, with Patrick Friesacher getting his first taste of the chassis team boss Paul Stoddart has deemed the most radical from Minardi in years.

To the squad's delight, both cars ran without any major technical issues during the morning session, although Albers' car was sidelined in the afternoon after a wiring problem developed at the beginning of the session. Friesacher, however, continued at uninterrupted pace, albeit without troubling the Jordans and Saubers ahead of him.

"In general, I'm happy with the work we've done today, although we need to find more grip, improve the braking and increase the gearbox shift speed," the Austrian reported, "There's clearly a lot of potential in the PS05, and I particularly want to thank the guys, who worked all night to get my car ready for today."

Albers was more disappointed, having worked hard to perfect the set-up of his car during the first hour, but agreed with his team-mate's assessment of the PS05's potential

"It was a shame we couldn't get out in the second session, because we made quite a lot of changes to the car between the sessions and weren't able to assess the effect they had," he admitted, "I think the source of this afternoon's problem will turn out to be relatively minor, though, and I have great confidence about the potential of the PS05."