Most teams have brought new aerodynamic parts and engine upgrades to the Imola circuit including Minardi who have brought their all new car the PS05 and the new cosworth engine, brought in the brand spanking new MAN trucks.

We've seen Ferrari close the gap, McClaren get some well needed qualifying pace and Minardi step closer to beating the Jordan's. Minardi will be at the back of the grid no matter what as they'll incur the 10 place penalty for using a new engine although in Minardi's case is not much a penalty.

Friday practice saw the first chance for the public to see the new Minardi PS05 in full action around the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari track. Both drivers ran the new car without any technical issues in the first Friday morning session. Unfortunately, Albers’ car was sidelined in the afternoon after a wiring problem developed at the beginning of the session, but Friesacher continued at uninterrupted pace with his technical programme. This surely helped the team gain valuable data and information about the new car and be able to obtain a greater pace in both qualifying sessions and the race on Sunday itself.

Patrick Friesacher had a best time of 1:26.620 just over a second and a half of the pace of the Jordan. “In general, I’m happy with the work we’ve done today. We need to find more grip, improve the braking and increase the gearbox shift speed, but overall, we’ve had a positive day. Now we just need to work on the areas we’ve identified. 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. You can see they are a little bit tired, and I would like to be able to give something back to them this weekend for all their work.” commented Patrick after the Friday sessions.

Christijan Albers even with his problems managed to extract a best time of 1:27.353. Albers told us after the Friday session “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 morning and afternoon sessions but weren’t able to assess the effect they had. I’m particularly disappointed for the guys, who have just been working so hard. 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 for the PS05. Now we just have to work on developing it, and finding a good set-up for this weekend.”

Minardi's team principle Paul Stodart said "After a productive first session that saw both cars run virtually faultlessly, the second session proved there is no substitute for testing. A wiring problem put paid to Christijan’s session, and while Patrick got all but one of his planned runs in, today was clearly all about beginning to understand the new car. Overall, the whole team is really impressed with the PS05, which appears to have enormous potential. I’m proud of the job done by the whole team, but particularly the relentless effort by the mechanics to get the cars on track today. Well done!”

So bring on qualifying was what everyone was saying, lets see how good the PS05 at it's lightest can compete against, well the Jordan's, as they are their closest rivals and really only team to beat this year as Sauber are starting to show their stuff but with Villenauve driving for them, anything is possible.

With the new PS05 on track at first qualifying in Imola the drivers did a fine job especially Christijan Albers bring the new Minardi PS05 to just 8 tenths of second of the the pace of Tiago Monteiros' Jordan. This is certainly a good first qualifying of the new car but Tiago Monteiros' lap was 2 seconds of the pace of his partner Narain Karthikeyan who has never raced here at Imola so Tiago very disappointing and may find a Minardi close on his tales during the race on Sunday.

The day, however, had not been without its ups and downs for the Faenza squad. It had started well enough, both drivers reporting progress on chassis set-up during the first of the two morning practice sessions. Unfortunately, the reality of running two brand-new cars came crowding in during the second, Albers’ chassis sidelined for the 45-minute session with a gearbox problem, and Friesacher’s when a change to suspension settings took significantly longer to complete than anticipated. The “learning curve” with the PS05 is necessarily steep at this point in its working life, but viewed in a positive light, every problem that is resolved at this stage also increases the team’s knowledge and understanding of its new car.

Christijan Albers qualifying 19th with a pat time of 1:25.921 told us “I’m a little bit annoyed with myself, as I made quite a few mistakes on the qualifying lap this afternoon, but I’m happy that we’ve been going quicker every time out so far this weekend. There is no doubt we have made progress with the car, which certainly felt better today with the changes we made, and I think we should be able to go quicker again tomorrow. I’m looking forward to the race, which hopefully, we’ll be able to finish, and to next week’s test, when we will aim to find more time in the car. Finally, I just want to thank the guys again. They’ve been working some really long shifts, and it’s impossible to say too much about the huge effort they’ve been putting in.”

Patrick Friesacher at the rear end of the grid had this to say “We found a little more grip today, and the car felt good. I think it has a lot of potential even though, so far, we have done such a small amount of running. There is more work to do on the set-up, but we are definitely heading in the right direction. As for the qualifying lap this afternoon, everything was going well until I slid slightly wide at the last chicane. If not for that, I think we would have had a reasonable time. Tomorrow is another day, though, and our aim will be to have a good second qualifying session and to finish the race.”

“Despite finishing today’s first qualifying session in P19 and P20, all things considered, the Minardi Team has a lot to be proud of this weekend. The morning sessions were dogged by mechanical gremlins, which are to be expected when one considers this is the first serious running for the new car, but it is clear the Minardi PS05 chassis and Cosworth TJ2005 engine package shows significant potential, as evidenced by Christijan’ second-fastest speed through the circuit speed trap this afternoon.” said Minardi team principle Paul Stodart.

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