Davidson shines in damp opening session 06 Oct 2006
Anthony Davidson made the best of wet conditions at Suzuka on Friday morning to set the fastest first practice time for Honda in 1m 45.349s, as only 10 other runners ventured out.
Neel Jani got closest to the Englishman in his Toro Rosso, impressing with 1m 46.138s, while Sebastian Vettel was his usual speedy self with 1m 46.585s to take third for BMW Sauber.
Michael Ammermuller likewise did well on his first visit to Suzuka to claim fourth place for Red Bull in 1m 47.162s, and then came a cluster comprising Red Bull’s Scott Speed (1m 47.814s), Spyker MF1’s Christijan Albers (1m 47.838s), Super Aguri’s Franck Montagny (1m 47.918s), Williams’ Alexander Wurz (1m 47.919s) and Super Aguri’s Takuma Sato (1m 48.042s).
Montagny was actually fastest for a while for local heroes Super Aguri, before dumping his SA06 in the gravel at Degner, while Wurz’s best lap was spoiled when he got the chicane wrong having set green times in the first two sectors. These were the only incidents of the session.
Adrian Sutil was 10th for Spyker MF1 in 1m 48.610s, and Sakon Yamamoto was 11th for Super Aguri in 1m 50.479s.
All the others did only installation laps apart from the Ferraris, which stayed in their garage all morning.
