Ferrari's Michael Schumacher opened the crucial Formula One Chinese Grand Prix with a solid performance staying ahead of championship leader Fernando Alonso in  free practice on Friday.

The German, poised to compete in his third last race before retirement at the end of this season, appeared in both sessions and clocked the fifth quickest time of one minute, 36.641 seconds on a damp track in the second session. He was 0.098 seconds faster than Alonso who chose to skip the first hour of practice before lunch.

Schumacher is now only two points behind his title rival Alonso with just the three races remaining. 

Williams' test driver Alex Wurz added a second session-topping performance overcoming an early stall and the onset of drizzle to fend off the impressive Sebastian Vettel.

Wurz improved marginally on his best morning session time posting one minute 35.539 seconds just before the first rain arrived and left his rivals to worry about the tricky conditions.

Although never heavy, the rain was persistent enough to leave the track surface slippery and saw both Alonso and, more permanently, Neel Jani, spin in the closing stages.

Wurz's advantage over the rest of the field was eventually whittled down to just 0.040 of a second by teenager Vettel who again underlined his future potential. 

Honda's third driver Anthony Davidson was third recording a best time of one minute 35.574 seconds after 30 laps.

None of the top three will race on Sunday leaving Ferrari's Massa as the quickest man on the timesheets. He clocked one minute 36.599 to finish ahead of Schumacher.

"The fight with our closest rivals seems to be very tight even if we have not yet had time to take a close look at all the data," said Schumacher. "It's difficult to make predictions on tyre performance given today's weather. I like driving at this track -- it's very tough with a big variety of corner types."

Alonso, winner here last year, won't let any opportunities slip away and expects to extend his two-point lead in the drivers' standings over Schumacher.

"This is a track I always enjoy especially with the good memories from the championship win last year," he commented "and even with the V8 engines and the other changes since 2005 it still felt very good to drive today."

Sales of the race tickets, ranging in price from 180 yuan (US$22.5) for one-day admission to 3,980 yuan for a premier seat for the entire weekend, have accelerated ever since the seven-time world champion announced his decision to retire three weeks ago at the Italian Grand Prix, the Shanghai Daily reported.

"We've seen a sharp rise in ticket sales after Monza," Liu Jianyou, a spokesman for the Shanghai International Circuit, was quoted as saying by the newspaper. "Obviously many decided to come simply for Schumacher's final appearance in Shanghai as a racing driver. I hope we can entertain a crowd as big as last year's this weekend." More than 110,000 spectators turned out for the 2005 race.

While tickets have been on sale for almost a year some agencies have said 20 percent of their sales have come since Schumacher announced his plans to hang up his helmet, Liu said.

The Ferrari driver goes into this weekend in a tight race with Renault's reigning world champion Fernando Alonso for the championship. Alonso currently sits just two points ahead of Schumacher with three races to go. Ferrari has a three-point lead over Renault for the team championship.

Timetable:

Saturday 30 September 2006
14:00  Qualifying
Sunday 01 Oct 2006
14:00  Race

(China Daily, Xinhua News Agency September 30, 2006)