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Jarno Trulli gave Honda an encouraging start to the Malaysian Grand Prix
by recording the fastest time in Friday's free practice session. His
Benson & Hedges Jordan Honda team-mate Heinz-Harald Frentzen finished the
session seventh fastest while Lucky Strike Reynard BAR Honda's Olivier
Panis and Jacques Villeneuve posted ninth and 11th fastest times overall
to complete a solid day's work for the Honda quartet.
In sweltering heat at Sepang circuit, Kuala Lumpur, the Jordan Honda
driver eclipsed the Ferraris of Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello
by 0.08 and 0.85 seconds respectively, all nearly half a second faster
than the next fastest driver, McLaren's David Coulthard. Jaguar's Eddie
Irvine made a surprise appearance in the top times by finishing the
session fifth fastest. Speculation over cooling problems for all teams in
conditions which saw track temperatures near 50 degrees Celsius and an
ambient air temperature of 34 degrees Celsius, amid high humidity, seems
to have all but evaporated, albeit without any race distances being
completed. The Honda-powered cars ran reliably in some of the most
demanding conditions likely to be seen this season, with all four drivers
completing between 29 and 39 laps each.
Jarno Trulli Position: 1st
"Today I had a good day. I just hope that I have a similar day tomorrow
and not a repeat of Melbourne. I am confident that every time I step into
the car I can push 100%. I am also satisfied because we don't appear to
be too far from McLaren or Ferrari which is good progress. But as always,
it's only Friday."
Kazutoshi Nishizawa - Technical Director, Honda Racing Development
"Basically we are happy with today for both teams. There were no major
problems and the heat doesn't seem to be creating too many difficulties.
As far as times and results go, we don't know what the others are doing so
we'll have to wait until tomorrow for a true comparison but overall we are
quite confident."
Eddie Jordan, Chief Executive, Jordan Honda "Friday isn't very meaningful nevertheless it's good to be at the top.
The best thing about today was that both cars ran without any problems in
the high temperatures."
Craig Pollock, Team Principal and Managing Director, BAR Honda
"A pretty normal Friday for us although we still have a lot of work to do
overnight. We were struggling a bit on set-up so that set us back a
little. All the teams looked very close today so it will be a very
interesting qualifying session tomorrow."
1. Jarno Trulli Italy Jordan-Honda 1min 38.846secs
2. Michael Schumacher Germany Ferrari-Ferrari 1min 38.929secs
3. Rubens Barrichello Brazil Ferrari-Ferrari 1min 38.931secs
4. David Coulthard Britain McLaren-Mercedes 1min 39.300secs
5. Eddie Irvine Britain Jaguar-Cosworth 1min 39.520secs
6. Mika Hakkinen Finland McLaren-Mercedes 1min 39.861ecs
7. Heinz-Harald Frentzen Germany Jordan-Honda 1min 40.197secs
8. Luciano Burti Brazil Jaguar-Cosworth 1min 40.211secs
9. Olivier Panis France BAR-Honda 1min 40.229secs
10. Ralf Schumacher Germany Williams-BMW 1min 40.617secs
11. Jacques Villeneuve Canada BAR-Honda 1min 41.003secs
12. Nick Heidfeld Germany Sauber-Petronas 1min 41.027secs
13. Giancarlo Fisichella Italy Benetton-Renault 1min 41.375secs
14. Kimi Raikkonen Finland Sauber-Petronas 1min 41.592secs
15. Jos Verstappen Holland Arrows-Asiatech 1min 41.794secs
16. Jean Alesi France Prost-Acer 1min 41.834secs
17. Jenson Button Britain Benetton-Renault 1min 42.214secs
18. Enrique Bernoldi Brazil Arrows-Asiatech 1min 42.541secs
19. Gaston Mazzacane Argentina Prost-Acer 1min 42.563secs
20. Tarso Marques Brazil Minardi-European 1min 42.872secs
21. Fernando Alonso Spain Minardi-European 12min 43.107secs
22. Juan Montoya Britain Williams-BMW 2min 13.188secs
Note: Juan Montoya managed only one lap all day, the Williams team
ruining him as they did Zanardi. The track is new. Montoya needs
laps. Why was he not allowed to use his backup car? Conspiracy
Theory?
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Enrique Bernoldi
