Japanese GP - Qualifying
TRULLI LEADS HONDA QUARTET AT SUZUKA Jarno and Jean continue the fight for fourth Jarno Trulli leads the Honda-powered quartet into tomorrow’s Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka after he set the eighth-fastest time in today’s qualifying session at the wheel of his Benson and Hedges Jordan Honda. His team-mate Jean Alesi will start from 11th position, while Lucky Strike B.A.R Honda’s Jacques Villeneuve and Olivier Panis were 14th and 18th fastest respectively. Michael Schumacher took pole position with a commanding performance in his Ferrari, seven-tenths of a second clear of the Williams BMW of Juan Pablo Montoya, whose tema-mate Ralf Schumacher was third. The second Ferrari of Rubens Barrichello was fourth, with McLaren’s Mika Hakkinen fifth and Giancarlo Fisichella, who joins Jordan Honda for 2002, in sixth. McLaren’s David Coulthard, who is fighting for second spot in the drivers’ championship with Barrichello, qualified seventh, just in front of Trulli. Jarno Trulli Position: 8th “Today’s result was a little disappointing as the car felt very good and I think I could have been in sixth position if I had not been held up by traffic on my fastest lap (second outing). Unfortunately, however, I lost a lot of time in the second section on that run, and then I was not able to improve the time on the final two outings. Nevertheless, it was not a bad result and I feel I got the best out of the car. I think Jean was having fun out on the track – he came up and gave me a big hug at the end of the session. He and I have had a lot of fun together over these last few races. We will all miss him.” Kazutoshi Nishizawa – Technical Director, Honda Racing Development “Unfortunately we couldn’t achieve the results we aimed for today. There were no problems and we are now able to concentrate our efforts on the race and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t expect to score points tomorrow.” Trevor Foster, Managing Director, Jordan Honda “We had hoped for slightly better grid positions than we achieved, although we were not a million miles away from where we expected to be. I think Jarno was unlucky not to have made P6, but ultimately he wasn’t able to put together his best sector times in one lap. The session was trouble free, though, and it was good to see Jean enjoying himself.” Malcom Oastler, Technical Director, B.A.R Honda “Today didn’t quite yield the improvement we had hoped for. The team have worked hard to make the step up so it’s disappointing to be starting so low on the grid. Jacques and Olivier drove hard today. We have achieved a good baseline set-up on both cars now but we need to be faster in the race tomorrow.” Today’s results Pole M.SCHUMACHER Ferrari 1'32"484 2 MONTOYA Williams BMW 1'33"184 3 R.SCHUMACHER Williams BMW 1'33"297 4 BARRICHELLO Ferrari 1'33"323 5 HAKKINEN McLaren Mercedes 1'33"662 6 FISICHELLA Benetton Renault 1'33"830 7 COULTHARD McLaren Mercedes 1'33"916 8 TRULLI Jordan Honda 1'34"002 9 BUTTON Benetton Renault 1'34"375 10 HEIDFELD Sauber Petronas 1'34"386 11 ALESI Jordan Honda 1'34"420 12 RAIKKONEN Sauber Petronas 1'34"581 13 IRVINE Jaguar 1'34"851 14 VILLENEUVE B.A.R Honda 1'35"109 15 FRENTZEN Prost Acer 1'35"132 16 DE LA ROSA Jaguar 1'35"639 17 PANIS B.A.R Honda 1'35"766 18 ALONSO Minardi European 1'36"410 19 ENGE Prost Acer 1'36"446 20 BERNOLDI Arrows Asiatech 1'36"885 21 VERSTAPPEN Arrows Asiatech 1'36"973 22 YOONG Minardi European 1'38"246 -------------------------------------------------------------- Honda Formula 1 Press Office, 19 Heathmans Road, London, SW6 4TJ, UK Tel: +44 (0)20 7384 2133 Fax: +44 (0)20 7384 1238