First round to Schumacher

Michael Schumacher won the first round of his final fight with Fernando Alonso following practice for Sunday’s Brazilian Grand Prix.

Schumacher finished just over a tenth of a second faster than Alonso at the end of the second hour-long session at Interlagos.

However, the seven-times world champion was forced to settle for the sixth fastest time of the day after clocking one minute 13.713 seconds, with Alonso down in 10th.

The three test drivers of Williams’ Alexander Wurz, Anthony Davidson of Honda and BMW Sauber's Sebastian Vettel were out in front, with all three ducking under 73 seconds.

Jarno Trulli was quickest overall of the main drivers as he set a time of 1:13.483 in his Toyota for the 4.3km circuit, with Jenson Button two thousandths of a second down for Honda.

Behind Michael Schumacher came brother Ralf, Super Aguri tester Franck Montagny, Kimi Raikkonen in his McLaren and then Alonso.

Schumacher had sat in the garage for the entire 60 minutes of the first session, along with Ferrari team-mate Felipe Massa and the Williams duo of Mark Webber and Niko Rosberg.

It was not until 20 minutes of the second session that he finally emerged and soon lit the touchpaper as he posted the fastest time at that point with his first timed lap.

The following lap he slid off onto the grass at Pinheirinho, and then the lap after he dipped under 74 seconds for the first time before returning to the pits.

The 37-year-old German eventually went quicker later on as a fairly eventful session drew to a close, which was all in stark contract to the first practice run which was typically low key.

Schumacher’s bout of inactivity was almost matched by Alonso as he completed a single installation lap.

That was unsurprising as the last situation either man needed was an engine problem, resulting in a 10-place grid penalty so harming their prospects of success.

Alonso requires one point to clinch back-to-back world titles, with Schumacher needing to win the race and then hope the 25-year-old Spaniard finishes outside the points if he is to clinch an eighth crown.

It was left to Raikkonen, who set the fastest lap in last year’s race, to lead the way early on with 1:13.764.