Austrian Grand Prix - Friday Free Practice

FRENTZEN'S FRIDAY FIGHTBACK
Austrian Grand Prix

Heinz-Harald Frentzen finished today's free practice for the Austrian
Grand Prix seventh fastest in his Benson & Hedges Jordan Honda, recovering
from a hydraulic glitch that sidelined him for most of the morning
session, to lead the Honda-powered quartet.  The Lucky Strike BAR Honda
pairing of Olivier Panis and Jacques Villeneuve were ninth and 10th
respectively while Frentzen's Jordan Honda team-mate finished the day 13th.

The Honda-powered teams were among those to complete the highest number of
laps of the A1-Ring today, with Jacques Villenueve clocking up the most of
all drivers with a total of 49 laps.  Frentzen's problem aside, this
reliability allowed Honda to explore different settings in preparation for
Sunday's race, while the specifications for qualifying will be the focus
of tomorrow morning's free practice.

Heinz-Harald Frentzen	Position: 7th
"Today was a bit frustrating as I lost so much time during the first
session, but the team worked really hard during the break to rectify the
problem.  There are still some things to try tomorrow morning on the basic
car set-up and I think the car still has more potential, but so far things
are good."

Kazutoshi Nishizawa - Technical Director, Honda Racing Development
"It was a good day for us - all four cars had no problems and showed good
reliability from an engine perspective.  We managed to achieve a high
number of laps and the times are good, within about a second of the guys
at the front, so all-in-all it looks promising for the weekend"

Tim Holloway, Head of Engineering, Jordan Honda
"It was a difficult day as Heinz lost most of the first session and 10
minutes of the second session due to a hydraulic problem that affected the
steering on his car.  He did a very good job to recover positions in the
last 50 minutes though.  Jarno also lost time as he damaged the car's
barge boards when he went off the track."

Craig Pollock, Team Principal and Managing Director, BAR Honda
"We had a trouble-free Friday.  It was a productive day for us and we are
happy to be running fairly quickly.  Both Jacques and Olivier are happy
with today's performance and both managed to find a good balance.  With
some good work overnight we will be looking to be more competitive in
qualifying tomorrow."


Today's results
1	David Coulthard	McLaren Mercedes	1m11.245s
2	Mika Hakkinen	McLaren Mercedes	1m11.272s
3	Rubens Barrichello	Ferrari	1m11.401s
4	Ralf Schumacher	Williams BMW	1m11.555s
5	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari	1m11.647s
6	Nick Heidfeld	Sauber Petronas	1m11.776s
7	Heinz-Harald Frentzen	Jordan Honda	1m11.977s
9	Olivier Panis 	BAR Honda		1m12.259s
10	Jacques Villeneuve	BAR Honda		1m12.290s
13	Jarno Trulli	Jordan Honda	1m12.555s

--------------------------------------------------------------
Honda Formula 1 Press Office, 19 Heathmans Road, London, SW6 4TJ, UK
Tel: +44 (0)20 7384 2133 Fax: +44 (0)20 7384 1238