Ferrari made the best possible start to their San Marino Grand Prix weekend on Friday as Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello set the pace on the first day of practice at Imola. In constantly wet or damp conditions, Jordan's Giancarlo Fisichella was their nearest challenger around the Italian circuit.

Schumacher's time remained unbeaten, despite the world champion spinning out of the second session with around 15 minutes of practice remaining. David Coulthard was fourth fastest for McLaren, immediately ahead of team-mate Kimi Raikkonen, while Heinz-Harald Frentzen completed the top six for Arrows.

After a very wet first one-hour session in the morning, the times did not tumble as expected in the afternoon, despite the still damp track beginning to dry. However, both Ferraris did improve with Barrichello, in his first competitive outing in the F2002, leapfrogging Fisichella to go second.

Schumacher meanwhile, having already improved on his morning time, looked on course to go faster still. However, after setting the best time in the first two sectors, he then lost control of his car at the Variante Alta and was forced to abandon it on the grass after it appeared to stall.

Juan Pablo Montoya was the first of the big hitters to improve in the second hour, after the Williams driver was only 19th fastest in the morning. After surviving a spin with just four minutes to go he finished the day in ninth place, immediately ahead of team mate Ralf Schumacher, who made several trips across the grass as he, like many others, struggled for grip on intermediate tyres.

Of the numerous spinners, Jarno Trulli was the only one to sustain any real damage to his car after his Renault slid into the Imola wall. He nevertheless finished the day in seventh place, while team mate Jenson Button was down in 14th.

At Jordan both Fisichella and team mate Takuma Sato survived more than one spin during the sessions. Sato failed to match the impressive pace of his more experienced colleague, but nevertheless set the day's 11th fastest time as the team made the best of Honda's latest evolution engine.

Sauber's Felipe Massa got the better of the two Williams to finish the day eighth for the Swiss team. This was despite a dramatic spin into the Tosa hairpin during the second session. Team mate Nick Heidfeld was 12th in the time sheets after being leapfrogged by Sato in the final minutes.

Jaguar coped well in the changeable conditions with Eddie Irvine and Pedro de la Rosa finishing the day 13th and 16th respectively, the R3 looking particularly strong in terms of straight-line speed around Imola.

BAR struggled to match Honda-powered rivals Jordan with Jacques Villeneuve in 15th place and Olivier Panis 17th. Meanwhile, Arrows experienced mixed fortunes with Frentzen's impressive sixth place in stark contrast to the 18th position of team mate Enrique Bernoldi.

Toyota seemed unable to get to grips with the wet conditions as Mika Salo and Allan McNish finished the day 20th and 22nd respectively. McNish's day got worse after he was also handed a fine for speeding in the pit lane.

At Minardi, who consider San Marino to be practically a home race, Mark Webber got the better of Salo to take 19th place, while team mate Alex Yoong was 22nd fastest.

With low track temperatures of around 9°C and the wet/damp circuit, many had predicted the conditions would favour the Bridgestone runners over the Michelin teams, both using their supplier's latest wet and intermediate compounds. Ferrari's dominance appeared to confirm this, although notably the top ten was equally split between the two companies.