Schumacher sets fastest time on final lap

Michael Schumacher left it late to register the fastest time in practice for the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim today.

The world champion set the standard in his Ferrari with a lap of one minute 15.066 seconds to edge out Williams’ Juan Pablo Montoya.

Rubens Barrichello gave Ferrari two cars in the top three with the third quickest time while Kimi Raikkonen kept up the new McLaren’s run of encouraging form with fourth.

Jenson Button, whose engine change yesterday means he has a 10-place grid penalty, was three-quarters of a second slower than Schumacher in fifth for BAR with McLaren’s David Coulthard seventh.

The session never really got going until the final minutes with a series of incidents interrupting the action.

Jordan’s Giorgio Pantano brought about a red flag after 16 uneventful minutes when he speared a tyre barrier after damaging his front wing.

In a repeat of Jordan tester Timo Glock’s accident yesterday, Pantano clipped the kerbs on the entrance to turn one and was unable to make the corner after his front wing was knocked off by a bollard.

The session was halted for nine minutes to allow marshalls to clear debris and when it resumed Schumacher went quickest with his first proper lap of the day.

But Minardi’s Zsolt Baumgartner suffered an identical problem to Pantano’s and brought out another red flag.

The Hungarian at least managed to nurse his car back to the pits as race organisers opted to remove the troublesome bollard.

Those stoppages cut short the 45-minute session by 14 minutes but even so Takuma Sato could not make the end.

The Japanese driver lost control of his BAR on the exit of turn 12 and despite a valiant attempt to resolve the situation, he careered into a barrier backwards.

Button gave BAR some better news though when he posted the fastest time of the session, although his time at the top lasted only a few seconds as first Raikkonen and then Barrichello went quicker.

As the final few seconds of the session approached, Montoya went quickest before Schumacher took the honours with his last lap.