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Schumacher lays down early marker
 Schumacher shows his paces during the free session in Bahrain. MANAMA, Bahrain -- Ferrari's Michael Schumacher was fastest of the leading contenders in opening free practise on Friday for the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix. Honda test driver Anthony Davidson set the fastest time in the second session with deposed world champion Schumacher 0.398 seconds slower but quickest of those racing on Sunday. Reigning champion Fernando Alonso was fifth fastest, but the real pointer to the speed of drivers and cars will come in Saturday's qualifying. The new three-part qualifying format forcing drivers to do more mileage on Saturday, while engines must still last for two successive races, so the big names had no incentive to spend much time on track. Sunday's race in Bahrain and steamy Malaysia the following weekend are two of the hottest and most demanding on engines and tires. Briton Davidson, 27, set a time of 1min 31.353se which was due largely to a cooler track temperature than in the morning session and a light fuel load in the test driver's car. Williams' Austrian test driver Alex Wurz ended up third ahead of Schumacher's Brazilian team-mate Felipe Massa, and Alonso of Spain, in a Renault. Toro Rosso's Italian driver Vitantonio Liuzzi completed the top six. McLaren's flying Finn Kimi Raikkonen, 26, who led the timesheet for eight minutes early on in the session, endured a nightmare start to the season when his McLaren stuttered to a halt with an as-yet undiagnosed mechanical failure. He was not the only expected front-runner to hit trouble as Italian Jarno Trulli also stopped out on the circuit a minute later. There were plenty of incidents at turn 10 during the sessions - although none of them serious as the tricky double-apex turn caught out no less than six drivers during the hour. Among the culprits were Michael Schumacher, Colombian McLaren star Juan Pablo Montoya and Liuzzi. The day also saw the debut at a grand prix weekend of the new Midland and Scuderia Toro Rosso teams that have replaced Jordan and Minardi respectively. 
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