By Karl King
May 5 2006

Formula 1 arrived on German soil today for the Friday Practice Sessions prior to the Grand Prix officially classified as the European GP at the Nurburgring. A British team topped the timesheets in both sessions, but from a McLaren fan's perspective, it was the wrong one...

It was Alexander Wurx, ex-McLaren tester, who put the Grove-based Williams squad on the top of the timesheets in both FP1 and FP2.

The McLaren pair, however were languishing further down the timesheets, with Kimi Raikkonen circling the track five times in the morning, and setting the eighth fastest time. Juan Pablo Montoya completed only an installation lap, thus not setting a time.

Pos	Driver	Constructor	Time	Laps
1	Alex Wurz	Williams F1	1m32.079	20
2	Anthony Davidson	Honda Racing	1m32.399	29
3	Robert Kubica	BMW Sauber	1m32.852	22
4	Michael Schumacher	Scuderia Ferrari	1m32.858	4
5	Robert Doornbos	Red Bull Racing	1m32.944	19
6	Jenson Button	Honda Racing	1m33.635	7
7	Rubens Barrichello	Honda Racing	1m34.213	6
8	Kimi Raikkonen	Team McLaren Mercedes	1m34.402	5
9	Ralf Schumacher	Toyota	1m34.995	6
10	Adrian Sutil	MF1 Racing	1m35.332	21
11	Neel Jani	Toro Rosso	1m35.365	19
12	Scott Speed	Toro Rosso	1m35.612	8
13	Christijan Albers	MF1 Racing	1m35.985	8
14	Tiago Monteiro	MF1 Racing	1m36.062	10
15	Takuma Sato	Super Aguri	1m37.817	20
16	Franck Montagny	Super Aguri	1m37.933	16

During the afternoon session, twelve more drivers were added into the equation. Embarrassingly, two of the three MF1 drivers were ahead of Kimi and Juan Pablo, who were thirteenth and seventeenth fastest respectively.

Pos	Driver	Constructor	Time	Laps
1	Alex Wurz	Williams F1	1:32.675	27
2	Fernando Alonso	Renault	1:33.579	14
3	Michael Schumacher	Scuderia Ferrari	1:33.619	14
4	Robert Doornbos	Red Bull Racing	1:33.799	25
5	Anthony Davidson	Honda Racing	1:33.870	29
6	Ralf Schumacher	Toyota	1:33.883	19
7	Jenson Button	Honda Racing	1:33.920	12
8	Robert Kubica	BMW Sauber	1:33.991	30
9	Giancarlo Fisichella	Renault	1:34.030	19
10	Adrian Sutil	MF1 Racing	1:34.179	23
11	Nico Rosberg	Williams F1	1:34.215	19
12	Christijan Albers	MF1 Racing	1:34.472	23
13	Kimi Raikkonen	Team McLaren Mercedes	1:34.536	13
14	Felipe Massa	Scuderia Ferrari	1:34.546	18
15	Rubens Barrichello	Honda Racing	1:34.631	11
16	Mark Webber	Williams F1	1:34.825	14
17	Juan Pablo Montoya	Team McLaren Mercedes	1:34.968	14
18	Christian Klien	Red Bull Racing	1:35.066	19
19	David Coulthard	Red Bull Racing	1:35.241	14
20	Nick Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	1:35.308	12
21	Tonio Luizzi	Toro Rosso	1:35.406	19
22	Neel Jani	Toro Rosso	1:35.479	26
23	Scott Speed	Toro Rosso	1:35.669	21
24	Jacques Villeneuve	BMW Sauber	1:35.688	12
25	Tiago Monteiro	MF1 Racing	1:35.902	18
26	Takuma Sato	Super Aguri	1:36.255	25
27	Franck Montagny	Super Aguri	1:36.665	16
28	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	No time	5

Both drivers were complaining of understeer during the sessions, due to a lack of grip, which the drivers, and Ron Dennis, are optimistic that it should be sorted by tomorrow's qualifying and the race on Sunday.