Amended Brazilian Grand Prix preview

Please note corrections to the year of Alain Prost's Brazilian GP win with Honda and the time zone differences

FIA Formula One World Championship - Round 3 Brazilian Grand Prix, Interlagos - 30 March-1 April 2001

Preview

Honda goes west

Formula One crosses continents to South America this weekend for the Brazilian Grand Prix at Interlagos, Sao Paolo, for round three of the 2001 FIA Formula One World Championship and the last 'flyaway' race before the international circus' European season begins.

Honda and its partner teams, Lucky Strike Reynard BAR Honda and Benson & Hedges Jordan Honda, will arrive in Brazil following a three-day test in Barcelona last week (21-23 March), which the majority of F1 teams attended, partly in preparation for the coming race.

Both BAR Honda and Jordan Honda had productive tests, at which Honda engineers continued an ongoing programme of engine development in addition to optimising engine set-up for Brazil. Like most, Honda also worked with the teams on the fine-tuning of traction control, in the lead-up to the reintroduction of the technology at the Spanish Grand Prix at the end of April.

Interlagos' characteristics include a notorious long uphill drag at the end of the lap, as Honda Racing Development's technical director, Kazutoshi Nishizawa, describes: "Interlagos is basically a mid-speed circuit, but the throttle is fully open for a reasonably high percentage of the time. The fast last corner and uphill pit straight following it are the main areas where a powerful engine can bring an advantage."

Jordan Honda's Heinz-Harald Frentzen has scored points in both races so far while his team-mate Jarno Trulli and the BAR Hondas of Jacques Villeneuve and Olivier Panis have all demonstrated the potential to do the same. All three will aim to get off the mark in Brazil while Frentzen will seek to extend his points tally, as Kazutoshi Nishizawa explains: "We've had promising qualifying sessions in both races so far, with all four Honda-powered cars in the top 10. These haven't really been converted into good race results so this time we want to show what we're capable of on race day."

Honda's Formula One pedigree has its fair share of Brazilian breeding, with three Grands Prix wins to its credit from the 10 it has contested, two of them courtesy of home-grown multi-world champions Nelson Piquet in 1986 and Ayrton Senna in 1991 (his first home GP win). Alain Prost delivered victory in 1988 to give Honda-power a total of three Brazilian GP wins. Supplementing these achievements, Honda-supported drivers have taken their respective places on the podium at the Brazilian Grand Prix on 10 occasions.

Circuit Details Circuit Name Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace Circuit Address Avenida Teutonio Vilelela, Interlagos, Sao Paolo, Brazil Circuit Length 4.292km/2.667miles

Timetable (all times are local, CET is 5 hours ahead, UK time is 4 hours ahead) Friday Free Practice: 11.00-12.00 & 13.00-14.00 Saturday Free Practice: 09.00-09.45 & 10.15-11.00 Qualifying: 13.00-14.00 Sunday Warm-up: 09.30-10.00 Race (71 laps): 14.00

2000 Results Winner M Schumacher (Ferrari) 1hr 31min 35.271sec Fastest race lap M Schumacher (Ferrari) 1:14.755sec Average Speed 207.509 kph Pole Position M Hakkinen (McLaren) 1:14.111sec

Honda in Brazil 2000 Zonta 10th/Villeneuve DNF

Honda in Brazil 10 Grands Prix; three wins (Piquet 1986, Prost 1988, Senna 1991); 10 podiums

Honda F1 winners Senna 32, Mansell 13, Prost 11, Piquet 7, Berger & Rosberg 3, Ginther & Surtees 1

Team wins powered by Honda McLaren-Honda 44 - Williams-Honda 23 - Honda 2 - Lotus-Honda 2

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