His lap of one minute 33.289 seconds is the fastest yet around the €300m circuit and goes some way to easing his disappointment at events last week.

Davidson looked likely to earn a race seat at Jaguar but that dream was ended when parent company Ford put the team up for sale.

His only hope of a race seat now rests at BAR, where David Coulthard appears to be his chief rival.

Davidson’s display today cannot have harmed his chances as he outpaced BAR team-mate Jenson Button by a massive 0.885secs.

Kimi Raikkonen was a second off the pace in third with team-mate Coulthard rounding off a strong session for McLaren with the fourth fastest time.

World champion Michael Schumacher has yet to trouble the top six in either session and followed up his 15th place this morning with eighth in second practice.

Jacques Villeneuve performed credibly on his return to Formula One after a one-year absence.

The Renault driver, in for the sacked Jarno Trulli, overcame a spin in the first session to end the afternoon 14th.

Williams’ Ralf Schumacher, also making his return after an enforced absence, showed his spinal fractures were no longer a problem in posting the seventh fastest time in second practice.

The session started badly for Davidson, who suffered an early off after just six minutes when he ran wide and bounced across the dirt.

His BAR team-mate Takuma Sato suffered a more worrying problem just a few minutes later when a cloud of smoke from his Honda engine signalled the premature end of his session. If the engine needs changing he will be penalised 10 spots on the grid.

Felipe Massa was the early pacesetter in his Sauber in front of a healthy crowd for Friday practice, although with 200,000 seats to fill, the new arena was far from packed.

Raikkonen took over at the top of the timing sheets soon after as Juan Pablo Montoya ran wide after trying too hard.

With half an hour remaining Button was the fastest man after becoming the first driver to lap the new track in under 1min 35secs.

Raikkonen knocked him off his perch briefly before Button hit back in some style by swiping nearly half a second off the Finn’s best.

Montoya suffered another blunder when he spun with five minutes to go but with only 30 seconds remaining Davidson dipped under the 1min 34sec mark to cap a superb performance today.

Earlier today he claimed the distinction of becoming the first man to top a session on the new track.

The BAR test driver was quickest in first practice with a lap of 1min 35.369secs this morning to put the regular race drivers in the shade.

Ralf Schumacher set an impressive time on his first weekend back since suffering spinal fractures at Indianapolis in June. He was just 0.086secs down on Davidson in second place for Williams.