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Impressive Alonso sets Monaco pace


MONACO, Monte Carlo -- Renault's championship leader Fernando Alonso looked every bit the Monaco Grand Prix favorite after setting the pace in practice for Sunday's race.

The Spaniard, chasing his fourth win in six races, powered around the classic street circuit in one minute 15.835 seconds to top the timesheets ahead of McLaren test driver Alex Wurz.

Briton David Coulthard, twice a winner in the principality for McLaren, was third quickest for Red Bull.

Alonso's Italian team mate Giancarlo Fisichella was fourth fastest.

Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya, a winner for Williams in 2003, had been quickest in the morning session for McLaren in 1:17.152, but could only manage fifth quickest second time around.

Alonso was second fastest in that hour-long stint, losing out by 0.149 of a second after leading until the final seconds on a warm and bright morning.

Ferrari's seven-times world champion Michael Schumacher managed the fourth best lap in the morning but only the 11th fastest in the afternoon.

Schumacher, five times a winner in Monaco, is in desperate need of another victory in the season's glamor event to end his team's run of six races without success -- their worst performance since Schumacher arrived in 1996.

Alonso has 44 points, 18 more than Toyota's Italian Jarno Trulli, who won in Monaco for Renault last year. Schumacher has just 10.

However, McLaren have become the team to beat after Kimi Raikkonen ended Renault's run of four wins in a row with victory in the last race in Spain. The Finn was 12th and sixth fastest.

The unforgiving barriers that form a ring of steel around the harborside circuit claimed several cars during the afternoon.

Minardi's Christijan Albers limping back to the pits without a front wing and Red Bull's Christian Klien also scattering the track with debris.

Sauber's Felipe Massa skidded sideways into the tyre wall.

Sunday's race will have just 18 starters due to the suspension of Honda-powered BAR for breaking the rules on fuel and weight at last month's San Marino GP.

BAR's Jenson Button finished second in Monaco last year and will make his return to the racetrack when the Nuerburgring hosts the European Grand Prix next week.


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