Drivers suffered from lack of heat in their tyres through out the early morning session due to the circuit temperature topping out at 21 degrees along with the ambient temp being 16 degrees.

Raikkonen took the opportunity to take the session though with a 1:20.975, nearly a half a second ahead of Alonso’s 1:21.402.

Jenson Button gave the British fans hope with the third best time of the session, 1:21.996. His BAR team-mate Takuma Sato ended the session in sixth place, 1:22.389.

Yesterday’s fastest race driver, Juan Pablo Montoya, finished in fifth place behind the Renault driven by Giancarlo Fisichella.

Felipe Massa beat Michael Schumacher to seventh place in the customer Ferrari engine powered Sauber.

Young Red Bull Racing driver Christian Klien beat his elder team-mate David Coulthard with a ninth best time of 1:22.645 compared to DC’s 11th place time of 1:23.026.

Ralf Schumacher held the Toyota flag in the top ten with a 1:22.775 lap time.