Honda Makes An Early Mark

HONDA MAKES AN EARLY MARK Trulli, Jordan and Honda power split Ferrari pair in first practice

On a glorious day in Melbourne's Albert Park, Honda made a confident opening to its 2001 FIA Formula One World Championship campaign as Jordan Honda's Jarno Trulli finished today's free practice session second fastest, by just 0.3 seconds, to the Ferrari of Rubens Barrichello. With his team-mate Heinz-Harald Frentzen and the BAR Hondas of Olivier Panis and Jacques Villeneuve eighth, 10th and 12th fastest respectively, Honda engineers are looking forward to consolidating and improving upon the solid progress made today.

It looked as if last year's frontrunners, Ferrari and McLaren, were once again going to dominate proceedings as they opened up a two-second gap from the rest of the field but by the second session this afternoon the same gap covered the first 10 cars, chief among them Jarno Trulli in his Honda-powered Jordan. The day came to a spectacular conclusion as, minutes before the end of the afternoon session, Michael Schumacher rolled his Ferrari in a high-speed accident, causing heavy damage to the car but walking away unscathed himself.

Jarno Trulli, leading Honda-powered driver Position: 2nd "We had quite a good session and I am satisfied for the moment but it's only Friday. It was a little bit slippery out there and we have some work to do with the tyres and on set-up. I had a problem with the electronics on the steering wheel and lost about half an hour of running time but after that everything was good. Friday is really about trying new things with the car's set-up, and my new engineer and I are getting on well. We just need some more time to really get to know each other's ways of working, but we have some good ideas for tomorrow and hope we can improve the car."

Kazutoshi Nishizawa - Technical Director, Honda Racing Development "This was a good start for Honda, chiefly as there were no problems across all four Honda-powered cars. Our new relationships are working well in the race environment, especially for the new Honda engineering staff and it is good to see them enjoying their work today. We were most interested to receive and compare the different feedback from four drivers, which increases our information base and contributes to the ongoing learning process."

Eddie Jordan, team principal, Jordan Honda "Looking good but it's too early to make predictions. The key thing is that both drivers are happy and the car was consistent."

Craig Pollock, team principal, BAR Honda "Overall I am a bit disappointed as it seems on the face of it we are lacking a little bit on performance. However, we have collected a significant amount of data which will help us to improve and we will be working hard on that overnight."

Today's results 1 Rubens Barrichello Ferrari 1:28.965 2 Jarno Trulli Jordan Honda 1:29.267 3 Michael Schumacher Ferrari 1:29.284 4 David Coulthard McLaren Mercedes 1:29.324 5 Mika Hakkinen McLaren Mercedes 1:29.799 6 Ralf Schumacher BMW WilliamsF1 1:30.277 8 Heinz-Harald Frentzen Jordan Honda 1:30.802 10 Olivier Panis BAR Honda 1:31.166 12 Jacques Villeneuve BAR Honda 1:31.559