Imola 2000: Friday Practice Reports

[ Arrows | Benetton | BAR | Ferrari | Jaguar | Jordan | McLaren | Minardi | Prost | Sauber | Williams | Bridgestone ]


Arrows [start]

Arrows drivers Pedro de la Rosa and Jos Verstappen were 10th and 16th fastest after the first day of practice for the San Marino Grand Prix. Pedro's best time was 1: 28.444 and Jos's 1: 28.975.

"We made some adjustments to the car and improved it a little bit. We had a radiator leak in the second session so we had to stop for about 20 minutes and lost some track time," explained Jos Verstappen. "This means we will still have to change the car a bit for tomorrow, but it is not too bad considering we are running with a lot of fuel, I am confident it will be good in qualifying."

"It has been a very positive Friday for us," added de la Rosa. "We made some changes to the car and know where we are for tomorrow, so have some answers. The car seems to be behaving very well on the circuit. Like Jos I am confident for tomorrow and very impressed with how the car is handling on this circuit."

"The car seems to work well here at Imola and I am sure, despite the cold weather at Silverstone, we were able to improve the cars at the test last week," concluded Tom Walkinshaw. "Both drivers are happy with the way things are going and are giving me confidence we can put in a good qualifying performance tomorrow."


Benetton [start]

Giancarlo Fisichella continued to show the potential of the B200 in todays free practice sessions at Imola, finishing eighth fastest for the day with a time of 1:28.236. The Italian was pleased with the overall performance of the car and is confident of a good qualifying session tomorrow.

"This was quite a good free practice today," remarked Fisichella. "On new tyres the car has quite a lot of understeer and I struggled a bit with a loose rear, but in general I am quite happy with our progress and am confident of qualifying well tomorrow."

Alexander Wurz's day didn't go as smooth as his teammates, the Austrian finishing the day in thirteenth overall with a time of 1:28.771. Both drivers found their cars very nervous this afternoon, with Wurz also losing time when he stalled trying to make a practice start out of the pits.

"Today we worked on chassis set-up for the race and we tried a few different things, some working better than others," commented Alexander. "We have got to grips with the car here and I think have found the right direction. We did some good work on tyres and engine mapping, so now we just need to analyze the data for tomorrow."

"Another good session today with solid progress on both cars," added Pat Symonds, Technical Director. "We have been chasing the balance a little bit, the cars starting with understeer but finishing the session a bit nervous. However we have done some good work on high fuel and we are satisfied with the day's work."


British American Racing [start]

Today's free practice session for Sunday's San Marino Grand Prix offered Ricardo Zonta the first opportunity to familiarize himself with the famous Imola circuit. Under blue skies and bright sunshine, the Brazilian completed 28 laps in front of the Italian tifosi, making reasonable progress on the set-up of the car and clocking competitive lap times throughout the two sessions.

"This is my first time in Imola and I have been getting used to the circuit today," said Zonta. "In particular, the kerbs are very hard on the car here and you have to think about where you can use them and where you need to stay on the tarmac. The balance of the car was quite good today and if I had put a clean lap together, I am sure that I could have found at least half a second."

Jacques Villeneuve, however, was unable to set a timed lap in either session. Mechanical troubles in the first hour necessitated the changing of both engine and gearbox, which the team was able to complete in good time. Unfortunately a suspected oil leak induced a spin on the Canadian's first timed lap of the afternoon, ending his activity for the day.

"It's not been a great day, but what can you say?" remarked Villeneuve. "We have lost two hours of track time, so we will have to work extremely hard on the set-up of the car in the two morning sessions tomorrow. I hope today's problems have now passed and we can get on with the rest of the weekend."

"Today was a difficult practice session and we have obviously not achieved our targets for today," added Takefumi Hosaka, Managing Director, Honda R&D. "This is Ricardo's first visit to Imola, so he has been learning the circuit and has made reasonable progress with the set-up of the car. We are sorry for the problems that prevented Jacques from completing a timed lap. We hope the time lost today will not prevent a better performance during the weekend."


Ferrari [start]

Ferrari couldn't have asked for a better outcome in todays first free practice sessions for the San Marino Grand prix. With their drivers finishing first and second for the day the team believes they have a very strong chance of taking their first pole of the season in tomorrows qualifying session.

Michael Schumacher was happy after setting the fastest time of the session and is confident he will be even faster tomorrow.

"I am reasonably happy as we have got through all the work we set out to do today, concentrating on set-up," the German stated. "We have had a better first day than we did at the first two races. I am sure we will be even quicker tomorrow. We can get pole position here, just as was the case in Australia and Brazil. The grandstands look a bit empty today, but I am sure the tifosi will turn out in force on Saturday and Sunday."

Rubens Barrichello was right behind his teammate, eventually finishing second fastest overall after suffering a few minor engine problems earlier in the day. The Brazilian feels he will be in a position to fight for pole position tomorrow and he is very happy with the days outcome.

"I had a few problems with the engine at first and had to stop after three laps," stated Barrichello. "The engineers quicker discovered it was nothing serious, therefore I was able to run for all of the second hour and I went quicker every time I went out on the track. I think I can fight for pole position, even though I have not yet found the ideal set-up. Overall, I am happy with the day's work."

"Today we worked mainly on finding the right set-up for the race," added Jean Todt. "The work is very important as this track is very hard on brakes and engines. Overall, the cars are going well and I think that tomorrow we will be in a position to fight for places on the front row."


Jaguar [start]

Jaguar Racing's two drivers had mixed fortunes in the first practice session this morning. While Irvine had a promising opening, setting a time of 1:28.566, Johnny Herbert's weekend got off to a bad start when he suffered a blown engine some 40 minutes into the session, after completing just seven laps. He dropped to 19th, with a time of 1:30.896.

Eddie's quickest lap was 1.3 seconds slower than Ferrari's Michael Schumacher in the morning session, however, the Irishman had a disappointing afternoon. Running light fuel only at the end of the session on old tyres, he failed to improve on his earlier time of 1:28.566 and finished the day in 12th position. Eddie noted that it's too early to say if a new underfloor has solved the handling problems the team has been experiencing this year.

"We just kept the fuel and kept the tyres," explained Irvine. "It's difficult to say much about the car, because by the end the tyres were just knackered, and I was going round for the sake of going round really! So we don't know. The floor seems better in one way, but worse in another. We will find out tomorrow, qualifying tells it all."

Teammate, Johnny Herbert recovered from his earlier engine failure to set the seventh fastest time of the day. His lap of 1:28.139 was over two seconds quicker than his previous time after his Jaguar was fitted with a fresh engine and a fresh set of tyres.

"The balance of the car at this stage of the race weekend is as good as I've had so far this season, which is encouraging for tomorrow," said Johnny. "This morning's failure shows that we still have some work to do on reliability."

Paul Stewart finds himself in an unusual situation this weekend, because for the first time since he started working in F1, his father Jackie is not present at a Grand Prix. When Jackie announced that he was taking a step back, he confirmed that he would no longer attend all the races, and instead he will be at this weekend's British F3 race. However, Paul was happy with the outcome of the day.

"Eddie was fast in this morning's session and then Johnny was seventh in the afternoon, so it was pretty good," he stated. "We were doing some good set-up and tyre evaluation work. Eddie dropped down the order because he was working on some stuff, and went in a direction that he wasn't comfortable with. That wasted a bit of time, but it's all part of discovering what we want to do tomorrow."


Jordan [start]

The Jordan duo of Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Jarno Trulli, finished todays free practice sessions in fourth and fifth respectively and both drivers are more than pleased with the days outcome.

Frentzen feels the team is in good shape for the coming race on Sunday as he was able to spend a lot of time concentrating on finding the perfect set up.

"We had a very good session today and I am happy with how the day went," stated Heinz-Harald Frentzen. "We had no problems and were able to do lots of work on finding the best set-up. The car felt good right from the first outing this morning and I think we are in good shape for the weekend."

Jarno Trulli is happy with the balance of his EJ10 and is looking forward to tomorrows qualifying session. Today was trouble free for the Italian driver who finished the second session only .065 behind his teammate.

"The practice went very well, without any problems," said Trulli. "Each time I went out I felt we made improvements to the car and I am quite happy with the balance. The atmosphere at the track is great and I am looking forward to tomorrow."


McLaren [start]

Today was not the best of days for the McLaren team with David Coulthard finishing the day behind both Ferrari's while reigning world champion, Mika Hakkinen languished down in sixth position.

Coulthard, a winner here in 1998 and second to Schumacher last year, was third best with a 1:27.372. The Scot, hoping to bounce back from his disqualification from second position in Brazil two weeks ago, said his team was experimenting with different settings.

"We have done some good work on the car in race trim and encountered no problems," remarked David Coulthard. "The car felt good straight away which gave us the opportunity to try several set-ups. I'm confident that we can achieve a good result tomorrow and on Sunday."

Coulthard's teammate and two-time world champion Mika Hakkinen was just sixth with a 1:28.021, however Hakkinen has taken both pole positions so far this season and according to Norbert Haug, todays positions don't necessarily have to be tomorrows.

"We made a big step forward in the last part of the second session when we were able to maximize the set-up," remarked Hakkinen. "However, with the yellow flags it was difficult to get an optimum lap."

"Not a perfect day, which was made more difficult by the every-changing track conditions and occasional yellow flags," added Ron Dennis. "As always, today we have been concentrating on the race therefore the times are somewhat immaterial."


Minardi [start]

Gaston Mazzacane finished fifteenth for the Minardi team today after completing 42 laps around the Imola circuit. He tried many different set ups and he was happy with the fact that he was able to complete as many laps as he did.

"We have done a good job. I feel it was a relatively positive Friday session," he said. "I completed a lot of laps and clocked loads of kilometres, which gave me the chance to try out different set-ups. I'm happy because I was able to continue with the development work, which is so beneficial both for the team and myself. I firmly believe that today has been extremely useful preparation for tomorrow's qualifying session."

Marc Gene on the other hand, finished down in 21st position, only ahead of Jacques Villeneuve who didn't complete a single timed lap for the day. Gene completed 33 laps with a best time of 1:29.412, however he explained that he was running with a heavy fuel load.

"I'm relatively satisfied with the car's performance on used tyres and with a lot of fuel on board," he explained. "Unfortunately, on the last run I had a few problems in terms of sensitivity with the car. Overall, we have worked well on the set-up. We will now study all the data collected today in order to make the best possible preparations for tomorrow's session."


Prost [start]

Jean Alesi finished todays free practice for the Prost team in 14th position and although he feels the day was far from perfect, the Frenchman does admit that the team is headed in the right direction.

Both Prost drivers were looking for a better aerodynamic balance from their cars, and despite a wild spin and a second trip through a gravel trap in the first session, Jean Alesi was delighted with the engine in his Prost.

"This is the best engine yet I have had from Peugeot," Alesi said, after trying variable-length injection trumpets for the first time, although he was complaining of too much oversteer from the chassis. "This first day was not perfect, far from it, but little by little we are going in the right direction and the work done by Peugeot is starting to produce positive results for my car. But there is still a big job to be done in finding the right set-up and to improve the general balance of the car if we want to be in a good position in qualifying and in the race."

Teammate Nick Heidfeld finished the day in 18th position, the young German forced to stop after just two laps in the morning session with an engine problem.

"Overall, I am quite happy," stated Heidfeld. "My lap times are close to my teammate's, even though I could not run this morning because of an oil pressure problem. This is bad because we could not complete the program we had planned. But even if we are short on running, I improved a bit in the end and if we go on like this we should be much better tomorrow."

"Unfortunately, we weren't able to complete our program today, but we have not worked badly, knowing that we were running with heavy fuel loads and that behind the two or three best teams the times recorded are very close," added Alain Prost. "We are going to work very hard to find the best possible set-ups and we will run tomorrow in qualifying with the new evolution engine in both of the cars. We hope, of course, that our reliability will allow us to have at least one car in the top ten."


Sauber [start]

Mika Salo and Pedro Diniz finished in 11th and 19th places after today's first practice session for the San Marino Grand Prix.

Pedro Diniz
"I had a good first session, and we made some improvements to the car for the second. Unfortunately I spun, and that cost me momentum. Without that I'm sure I could have kept the good position I had this morning".

Mika Salo
"I was struggling for grip and traction this morning, and had too much understeer. But we made some changes to the car and it was better for this afternoon's session. It was quite difficult to get a clear lap today - a lot of people seemed to be driving slowly in the middle of the road. That may make qualifying pretty tough, but we have found a good direction for the set-up so I'm feeling confident".

Peter Sauber (Team Principal)
"It was an ordinary Friday for us. We achieved a half race distance and therefore had a good chance to do race set-up work. It's a pity that Pedro spun, but it was a good day for Mika. The RED BULL SAUBER C19 was reliable and proved competitive in the condition in which we were running it".


Williams [start]

Ralf Schumacher and Jenson Button were 9th and 20th fastest respectively in today's free practice session for the San Marino Grand Prix, despite neither driver completing the full session.

Ralf Schumacher locked up his Williams brakes at the Tosa chicane whilst trying to improve his time and spun off into the gravel trap, becoming beached there with 15 minutes of the session remaining, leaving him in ninth place.

"I was quite happy with the balance of the car, we have definitely improved it since Brazil, and the engine felt pretty good too," commented Ralf. "I just made a little mistake. Fortunately the car doesn't look badly damaged."

Jenson Button parked his car with a blown engine only a few minutes later whilst on the verge of improving his time on his first visit to the Imola circuit, leaving him down in 20th.

"I went out very early in this morning's session with the basic intention of just getting as many laps of the place under my belt as possible," explained Jenson. "I haven't even tested here before. During the first few laps the circuit was still damp from the overnight rain. By the time it had dried out I'd already done a lot of miles and my tyres were probably past their best. In the afternoon I was just starting to feel like I had a measure of the place when the engine stopped. I have struggled here a little bit, to be honest. I've found it a more difficult track to learn than Interlagos. You have to use the kerbs here a lot and I spent quite a lot of time getting the car set up for that and it also took me a while to get used to the best way of using the kerbs. I'm quite happy with the general behaviour of the car though. I'm quite disappointed to be down in 20th, but qualifying at 1400 tomorrow is when it really counts and I'm sure we'll be looking much better then."

"It was quite useful," commented BMW WilliamsF1 Team Technical Director Patrick Head about todays session. "We've made quite a lot of progress with the set-up of the cars. It's a pity Jenson's car stopped when it did because it looked like he was about to significantly improve his time."


Bridgestone [start]

Not present at this time

San Marino Grand Prix Weekend