Alex Wurz, the team’s test driver, dominated Friday’s opening run at Hockenheim and completed the set in the afternoon with another fastest lap.

Kimi Raikkonen (second) and Juan Pablo Montoya (fourth) followed their team-mate home in an ominous result for the other nine outfits in the pit lane.

Renault were offered some hope by Fernando Alonso who managed to scrape inside the top three.

The Spaniard was well off the pace required to fight for P1 but he did manage to claim the scalp of Montoya who beat him two weeks ago in Britain.

Toyota’s reserve Ricardo Zonta was fifth and Renault’s Giancarlo Fisichella sixth.

Sauber’s Felipe Massa was the surprise entry into the top 10 in P7.

Ferrari and Williams continued to struggle to find any pace from their respective 2005 racers.

Surprisingly BAR were also unconformable and after a promising start neither Jenson Button or Takuma Sato could get into the timesheet’s upper half.

The day’s only drama was provided by David Coulthard who spun his Red Bull RB1 at turn 12 and couldn’t recover from the gravel.