US Grand Prix - Free Practice
US GRAND PRIX GETS UNDERWAY Times close as Alesi leads Honda quartet Jean Alesi and his Benson and Hedges Jordan Honda team-mate Jarno Trulli finished the first session of free practice 12th and 14th fastest overall to lead the Honda-powered quartet of drivers and cars, ahead of the Lucky Strike B.A.R Hondas of Olivier Panis and Jacques Villeneuve, in 15th and 18th positions respectively. In front of an unusually large Friday crowd at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, McLaren’s Mika Hakkinen set the pace with the two Ferraris of Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello close behind. Hakkinen’s team-mate David Coulthard was fourth fastest in a session characterised by very close times and a number of spins as the drivers acclimatised to a dusty track surface. Jean Alesi Position: 12th “I had quite a difficult day as I lost some running time during the first session and beginning of the second session, due to a problem with the car’s electronics. Fortunately, we were able to re-set the systems and make some good progress with the car’s set-up in the second hour. The balance is still not quite right so we need to look at the data and establish the best direction to go with the set-up.” Kazutoshi Nishizawa – Technical Director, Honda Racing Development “No major problems except, as usual, we need to go faster! In actual fact, despite it being Friday practice, with everybody trying different things, the times are extremely close and I think it is going to be a very competitive weekend.” Trevor Foster, Joint Managing Director, Jordan Honda “Jarno spent the two sessions working through a normal race set-up programme which was trouble free, although Jean was hindered by a software problem which cost him valuable track time. There’s a lot of work to do for tomorrow but we have gained some good data as we productively worked through today’s programme.” David Lloyd, Race Engineer to Olivier Panis, B.A.R Honda “Obviously Olivier hasn’t driven here before so much of the first session was dedicated to him learning the circuit. Fortunately he got to grips with it quite quickly which is good. The circuit is normally quite dirty early on so the times were quite slow. Olivier reported that there wasn’t much grip at first – for that reason. This afternoon, we were able to focus more on tyre evaluation and I think we have made quite a lot of progress there. Tomorrow, we will be looking to fine-tune the set-up to get the most from our tyre choice. Generally we’re quite optimistic at this stage.” Today’s results Pos Driver Chassis/engine Time 1 HAKKINEN McLaren Mercedes 1'13"387 2 M.SCHUMACHER Ferrari 1'13"552 3 BARRICHELLO Ferrari 1'13"584 4 COULTHARD McLaren Mercedes 5 IRVINE Jaguar 1'13"806 6 HEIDFELD Sauber Petronas 1'13"827 7 FRENTZEN Prost Acer 1'13"858 8 DE LA ROSA Jaguar 1'13"917 9 R.SCHUMACHER Williams BMW 1'13"919 10 MONTOYA Williams BMW 1'13"983 11 RAIKKONEN Sauber Petronas 1'14"027 12 ALESI Jordan Honda 1'14"057 13 BUTTON Benetton Renault 1'14"186 14 TRULLI Jordan Honda 1'14"215 15 PANIS B.A.R Honda 1'14"368 16 ENGE Prost Acer 1'14"767 17 FISICHELLA Benetton Renault 1'14"911 18 VILLENEUVE B.A.R Honda 1'14"999 -------------------------------------------------------------- Honda Formula 1 Press Office, 19 Heathmans Road, London, SW6 4TJ, UK Tel: +44 (0)20 7384 2133 Fax: +44 (0)20 7384 1238