Monaco Grand Prix:Rubens Barrichello made the ideal start to erasing painful memories of the Spanish Grand Prix he felt he should have won 11 days ago by posting the quickest time in the first practice for Sunday's Monaco Grand Prix this morning.
Barrichello was left considering his future with Brawn GP after he felt his team favoured stablemate Jenson Button in their strategy in Barcelona.
The Briton was switched from a three-stop strategy to two early in the race at the Circuit de Catalunya, whilst Barrichello remained on three, and it played into Button's hands.
It allowed the 29-year-old to claim his fourth win in five races, and in so doing, stretch his lead at the top of the standings over Barrichello to 14 points.
But today, as blue skies and warm sunshine added to the picturesque view of the Principality, Barrichello clocked a time of one minute 17.189 seconds around the tight, twisty, barrier-lined street circuit.
His nearest rival was Felipe Massa in his Ferrari who was 0.310secs adrift, followed closely by world champion Lewis Hamilton.
In the build-up to this race, McLaren and Hamilton indicated their car would be far better suited to a low-speed Monaco track compared to Barcelona where they languished.
With Hamilton and team-mate Heikki Kovalainen third and fourth, the latter just under half a second down, there is hope yet for McLaren and that the former might just repeat his win of a year ago.
In a similarly strong showing for Ferrari, and with the sport's two biggest teams occupying four of the top five places for the first time this season, Kimi Raikkonen was fifth, 0.650secs adrift.
The Williams duo of Kazuki Nakajima and Nico Rosberg were sixth and seventh, followed by current championship leader Button who finished over eight tenths of a second off the pace.
Fernando Alonso in his Renault and the Red Bull of Mark Webber, who was third in Spain, were ninth and 10th, although the latter and team-mate Sebastian Vettel both encountered issues.
With the team running their new rear diffuser for the first time this season, Webber complained during the 90-minute session of vibrations at the back of his car.
As for Vettel, he was forced into the pits with a likely engine issue as puffs of smoke were seen from the rear of his car at one stage, with the young German eventually finishing 14th.
The BMW Saubers of Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld were down in 16th and 17th, whilst Toyota's Jarno Trulli strangely brought up the rear, completing a decent 26 laps, but 2.642secs off the pace.