The six times champion wasn’t one to let his home fans down as he stormed to the top of the table on his final lap of the session with a time of one minute and 15.066 seconds.

The marshals’ flags – which were in theme with the scarlet clad German crowd – weren’t waving for Schumacher however.

The reason they waved was for Jordan’s Giorgio Pantano and Minardi’s Zsolt Baumgartner whose mistakes meant the session had to stopped on two occasions.

Both men destroyed the front wings on their respective cars through Hockenheim’s opening turn after hitting the apex too hard.

The mistake proved terminal for Pantano who ended his morning in the tyre barriers while Baumgartner struggled his way home.

Takuma Sato provided company for his Jordan counterpart on the sidelines after he too slid off the circuit.

BAR’s ‘wild man’ lost control of his 006 in the circuit’s final sector and thumped into the barriers sideways.

The ‘thrills and spills’ provided by Formula One’s less-experienced contingent wasn’t the only excitement early on Saturday morning.

The battle on the timesheets was just as capturing with Schumacher again forced to work for his practice honours.

On this occasion it was Williams Juan Pablo Montoya that finished second ahead of Rubens Barrichello (Ferrari) and Kimi Raikkonen (McLaren).