WilliamsF1 Technical Director Patrick Head remembered the teams strong performance at this circuit in 2002. He said: "We are returning to the venue of our last victory and 1-2 finish, which was a strong performance from Ralf and a colourful second position coming from Juan after a first lap accident with Michael."

Ralf Schumacher would take to the track early on and would set a lap time of 1m:38.638. He would quickly be passed by his team-mate Juan Pablo Montoya. Ralf at one time was in second. Juan Pablo's set the top speed with 304.2 km/h, which was significantly faster than Michael Schumacher (300.0 km/h).

The session would see both WilliamsF1 drivers returning to the pits regularly to make adjustments to their cars. Juan Pablo would early on make adjustments to his front wing.

They would be behind McLaren's David Coulthard and the Renault pair of Alonso and Trulli. Coulthard would set his time in the final moments of practice pushing Juan Pablo down from third. Alonso would head the times for most of the session.

McLaren team-mate Raikkonen would finish in nineteenth after a session that would see him on a quick lap only to return to the pits.

In sixth and eighth would finish the BAR pair of Button and Villeneuve. Button looks like he wants to head his team-mate, especially in light of comments from Villeneuve saying that Button was a weak team-mate. Villeneuve at one point was way down in tenth, a full second behind Button.

Ahead and behind of Villeneuve came Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello.

For the Jaguar drivers things still continued badly with Webber waiting for his car to be repaired after his testing accident. For Pizzonia he would go off the track and damaged his front wing, that would eventually detached from the Jaguar. He would finish sixteenth. For Webber he would get just an installation lap to be sure there was nothing wrong with his car before the qualifying session.

For Sauber's Heinz Harald Frentzen his car would stop out on the circuit. He would set a time good enough for eleventh. Jordan's Ralph Firman would finish in fifteenth after at one stage been as high as fifth. He would make a mistake that would see him spin his car into the gravel. Fisichella would finish tenth.