By CRX & Huw Alban
April 21 2006

This is more like it! Christijan Albers has set Midland F1 on fire today, posting the 14th fastest time in the second free practice session. Midland F1 is finally starting to show real performance gains over its competitors.

Long time forum contributor CRX kindly filled my shoes for the second free practice session today, and his message board commentary can be found at the following link:

San Marino - Friday Free Practice - 2nd Session

In summary CRX’s commentary suggests that the team had a slow start to the session, but gradually gathered pace with Christijan posting his best time towards the end of the session. Tiago Monteiro meanwhile appeared to be languishing near the bottom of the timesheets, but comment was made as to whether the team were using their drivers to investigate the lap time penalty associated with fuel loads.

Christijan’s time has been very well received by fans on the forum, and there is little care that it was probably made on very low fuel. It does, however, give the fans real hope that Midland can actually make it into the second 15 qualifying session, and make it there based on real pace as opposed to other drivers experiencing issues.

The third and final free practice tomorrow should be very interesting to view. Be sure to join fellow Midland F1 fans on this sites forum to share in the excitement.

Full times from the second free practice session at Imola:

1 Fernando Alonso Renault 1:25.043
2 Michael Schumacher Ferrari 1:25.371
3 Robert Kubica Sauber-BMW 1:25.421
4 Anthony Davidson Honda 1:25.699
5 Felipe Massa Ferrari 1:25.879
6 Giancarlo Fisichella Renault 1:25.991
7 Jarno Trulli Toyota 1:26.029
8 Alexander Wurz Williams-Cosworth 1:26.328
9 Juan Pablo Montoya McLaren-Mercedes 1:26.334
10 Nick Heidfeld Sauber-BMW 1:26.387
11 Jenson Button Honda 1:26.427
12 Kimi Räikkönen McLaren-Mercedes 1:26.500
13 Rubens Barrichello Honda 1:26.653
14 Christijan Albers MF1-Toyota 1:26.783
15 Jacques Villeneuve Sauber-BMW 1:26.797
16 Robert Doornbos RBR-Ferrari 1:26.917
17 Nico Rosberg Williams-Cosworth 1:26.989
18 Vitantonio Liuzzi STR-Cosworth 1:27.128
19 Mark Webber Williams-Cosworth 1:27.157
20 David Coulthard RBR-Ferrari 1:27.503
21 Tiago Monteiro MF1-Toyota 1:27.544
22 Ralf Schumacher Toyota 1:27.639
23 Scott Speed STR-Cosworth 1:27.719
24 Christian Klien RBR-Ferrari 1:27.990
25 Neel Jani STR-Cosworth 1:28.361
26 Giorgio Mondini MF1-Toyota 1:28.833
27 Takuma Sato Super Aguri-Honda 1:29.870
28 Yuji Ide Super Aguri-Honda 1:31.042