By Nick Sparkes
October 14 2005

Panasonic Toyota Racing had a less than encouraging start to their final Friday Practice session of the season. It was warm and humid for both sessions, allowing Ricardo Zonta to put in a scorching pace with the Brazilian taking his Toyota into the top three in both sessions. This first session saw Ricardo Zonta do the bulk of the work for Toyota, the Brazilian rounding off 24 laps to take his Panasonic Toyota to third place overall. Whereas race drives Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli struggled to find any speed out of their TF105B’s, with Ralf finishing thirteenth and Jarno a disappointing nineteenth. Elsewhere McLaren’s Pedro de La Rosa was on fire throughout the whole of the session, the Friday test driver finishing fastest, almost a clear two seconds ahead of everybody else. Out going Ferrari driver Rubens Barrichello was a surprising second, whereas the 2005 Champion Fernando Alonso was seventh.

Pos.	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
1	P. De La Rosa	Team McLaren Mercedes	1:33.463	20
2	R. Barrichello	Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro	1:35.303	13
3	R. Zonta	Panasonic Toyota Racing	1:35.373	24
4	K. Raikkonen	Team McLaren Mercedes	1:35.481	5
5	M. Schumacher	Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro	1:35.494	12
6	J. Montoya	Team McLaren Mercedes	1:35.521	9
7	F. Alonso	Mild Seven Renault F1 Team	1:35.605	10
8	M. Webber	BMW WilliamsF1 Team	1:35.945	13
9	D. Coulthard	Red Bull Racing	1:36.089	10
10	J. Button	Lucky Strike BAR Honda	1:36.096	11
11	A. Pizzonia	BMW WilliamsF1 Team	1:36.208	12
12	T. Sato	Lucky Strike BAR Honda	1:36.829	11
13	R. Schumacher	Panasonic Toyota Racing	1:36.866	13
14	V. Liuzzi	Red Bull Racing	1:37.119	24
15	F. Massa	Sauber Petronas	1:37.123	11
16	G. Fisichella	Mild Seven Renault F1 Team	1:37.143	5
17	C. Klien	Red Bull Racing	1:37.490	8
18	J. Villeneuve	Sauber Petronas	1:37.688	7
19	J. Trulli	Panasonic Toyota Racing	1:37.764	9
20	N. Karthikeyan	Jordan Grand Prix	1:38.308	15
21	T. Monteiro	Jordan Grand Prix	1:39.088	11
22	N. Kiesa	Jordan Grand Prix	1:39.687	21
23	R. Doornbos	Minardi F1 Team	1:40.724	14
24	C. Albers	Minardi F1 Team	1:40.787	13

The second session of the day got underway in similar conditions, with Ricardo Zonta again flying the flag for Toyota. The Brazilian rounding out his 2005 season as our Friday tester a creditable second. Whereas behind Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli failed again to make big impression on the front runners, with Ralf finishing eighteenth and Jarno nineteenth. Things would go from bad to worse for Jarno, as near the end of the session his Toyota TF105B stopped on track with a suspected gearbox problem.

Like in the first session Pedro de La Rosa finished fastest with Kimi Raikkonen and Juan Pablo Montoya giving McLaren a 1 – 3 – 5 finish.

Pos.	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
1	P. De La Rosa	Team McLaren Mercedes	1:32.834	30
2	R. Zonta	Panasonic Toyota Racing	1:32.977	29
3	K. Raikkonen	Team McLaren Mercedes	1:34.092	14
4	F. Alonso	Mild Seven Renault F1 Team	1:34.226	24
5	J. Montoya	Team McLaren Mercedes	1:34.541	16
6	R. Barrichello	Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro	1:34.618	24
7	G. Fisichella	Mild Seven Renault F1 Team	1:34.932	28
8	M. Webber	BMW WilliamsF1 Team	1:35.035	24
9	J. Button	Lucky Strike BAR Honda	1:35.072	25
10	F. Massa	Sauber Petronas	1:35.196	26
11	D. Coulthard	Red Bull Racing	1:35.201	19
12	V. Liuzzi	Red Bull Racing	1:35.306	26
13	T. Sato	Lucky Strike BAR Honda	1:35.397	24
14	M. Schumacher	Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro	1:35.567	24
15	C. Klien	Red Bull Racing	1:35.613	19
16	A. Pizzonia	BMW WilliamsF1 Team	1:35.709	13
17	J. Villeneuve	Sauber Petronas	1:35.894	21
18	R. Schumacher	Panasonic Toyota Racing	1:36.051	20
19	J. Trulli	Panasonic Toyota Racing	1:36.079	26
20	N. Kiesa	Jordan Grand Prix	1:36.644	25
21	R. Doornbos	Minardi F1 Team	1:36.993	22
22	C. Albers	Minardi F1 Team	1:37.173	21
23	T. Monteiro	Jordan Grand Prix	1:37.435	11
24	N. Karthikeyan	Jordan Grand Prix	1:37.467	18