Alonso quickest in Monaco practice

Renault's championship leader Fernando Alonso (picture) looked every bit the Monaco Grand Prix favourite yesterday after setting the pace in practice for Sunday's glamour race.

The Spaniard, chasing his fourth win in six grands prix, powered round the tight and twisty 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 Mediterranean principality for McLaren, was third quickest for Red Bull ahead of Alonso's Italian team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella.

Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya, a winner for Williams in 2003, had been quickest in the morning session for McLaren in 1:17.152.

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 glamour 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 Jarno Trulli, last year's winner in Monaco. 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 harbourside 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.

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.

Ralf Schumacher handed penalty

Toyota's Ralf Schumacher was ordered to add a half second penalty to his Monaco GP aggregate qualifying time after a tyre error in free practice yesterday.

Stewards summoned the German, younger brother of Ferrari's world champion Michael, and a representative of the team after Ralf was found to have used a left front tyre that had not been officially allocated to him.

Ralf was ninth fastest in free practice yesterday.