By Huw Alban
August 4 2006

A relatively quiet first practice session for Midland F1, with Markus Winkelhock doing the majority of the work. Markus finished the session 10th, 3.5 seconds slower than pace setter Kimi Räikkönen.

Markus Winkelhock was the first Midland F1 driver to take to the track, almost right at the start of the session. After a now customary 10 minute check over, he was back out again and pumping in lap times.

His first run of laps were not particularly wild, but that is not surprising as the Hungaroring is notoriously dusty and since this is the first F1 action of the weekend the track would have been wickedly slippy.

Gradually he improved his time, and over 26 laps brought the gap down to 3.5 seconds.

Tiago Monteiro and Christijan Albers also came out to play in the last 10 minutes of the session, presumably because by then the track would have become significantly cleaner. They finished toward to the back of the field, but it's dangerous to take any indication from this as we've no idea what the two race drivers would have been evaluating.

Full timesheet from the First Practice for the Hungarian Grand Prix:

1 Kimi Räikkönen McLaren-Mercedes 1:21.624
2 Anthony Davidson Honda 1:22.396
3 Michael Schumacher Ferrari 1:22.499
4 Pedro de la Rosa McLaren-Mercedes 1:22.730
5 Alexander Wurz Williams-Cosworth 1:22.941
6 Rubens Barrichello Honda 1:23.553
7 Jenson Button Honda 1:23.659
8 Robert Doornbos RBR-Ferrari 1:23.999
9 Jarno Trulli Toyota 1:24.620
10 Markus Winkelhock MF1-Toyota 1:25.194
11 Neel Jani STR-Cosworth 1:25.424
12 Vitantonio Liuzzi STR-Cosworth 1:25.477
13 Scott Speed STR-Cosworth 1:26.678
14 Christijan Albers MF1-Toyota 1:26.680
15 Tiago Monteiro MF1-Toyota 1:27.321
16 Takuma Sato Super Aguri-Honda 1:29.765
17 Ralf Schumacher Toyota 1:30.110
18 Sakon Yamamoto Super Aguri-Honda 1:30.353

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