Track temperatures at the 5.417km desert venue once again hovered around 50 degrees as third driver Ricardo Zonta set the quickest time, 1m31.449s, in Friday morning’s first practice. The Brazilian finished up second overall when West McLaren Mercedes third driver Alexander Wurz lapped in 1m30.695s during the afternoon session. Wurz is driving in place of Pedro de la Rosa, who has been elevated to a race seat alongside Kimi Raikkonen following a shoulder injury to Juan Pablo Montoya.

The only negative for the Toyota team is that Zonta was unable to complete his longer tyre comparison runs when a gearbox problem confined him to the garage for much of the second session.

“That was a shame because we effectively lost our third car advantage,” the Brazilian explained. “Having said that, we were able to complete our programme in the morning session, including some set-up and balance changes, and the car felt good.”

Jarno Trulli, deliverer of the fine second place in Malaysia, was less satisfied.

“It was a typical Friday comparing the two different types of Michelin tyre on offer, but I’m not completely happy with the balance,” the Italian reported. “There is still quite a bit of work to do and it’s a bit early to make too many predictions about the rest of the weekend. We will have to reserve judgement until we see where we are tomorrow (Saturday) morning.”

Trulli’s best lap, 1m32.595s, was the seventh quickest of the day. Team mate Ralf Schumacher recorded 1m33.077s and was 10th fastest in the overall classification. Behind Wurz and Zonta, Malaysian winner Fernando Alonso (1m31.969s) was third quickest for Mild Seven Renault, ahead of Red Bull Racing third driver Vitantonio Liuzzi (1m32.319s), De la Rosa (1m32.333s) and seven times champion Michael Schumacher (1m32.431s) aboard the new 2005 Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro car, which was being seen for the first time.

“That was quite a difficult day,” Schumacher Jr admitted. “There was so little grip on the circuit, as evidenced by the number of people locking up and going off the track, that it was actually quite difficult to make accurate assessments as regards tyres and set-up changes. Tyre choice, therefore, may not be straightforward.”

Bahrain places heavy demands on brakes and is also testing for engines. As well as engines running at full throttle for more than 60% of the lap, placing Sakhir among the five most strenuous tracks on the calendar, an added problem is the possibility of ingesting sand. The teams therefore have to pay special attention to air filters. In the first two 2005 races, the Toyota engines in both the Panasonic Toyota Racing cars and the Jordans ran more mileage than any other engine, without problem, and so Toyota is hopeful that its reputation for reliability will continue whatever the demands.

Team Technical Director, Chassis, Mike Gascoyne, said: “Ricardo’s gearbox problem was unfortunate for us but, on the plus side, we were able to complete the programme with both Ralf and Jarno. That means that we have a full bank of data to work though and, even taking Ralf’s comments into account, we should be able to make an informed tyre choice.”