Summary

Both the Ferrari's topped the first free practise for the Argentine Grand Prix today. They couldn't keep up this pace however and they had to watch as Jacques Villeneuve took a great gap between him and second place driver Rubens Barrichello, who his doing a terrific job in the Stewart-Ford. The second driver using Bridgestone tyres was Olivier Panis in the Prost-Mugen.

Notes

• Villeneuve was slightly ill.
• The first session was halted twice because of spins by Diniz and Trulli.
• All drivers within the 107% rule time of 1m 31.758s

• Weather during sessions: dry

Villeneuve (Williams) Barrichello (Stewart) Panis (Prost) Berger (Benetton) Schumacher (Ferrari) Fisichella (Jordan) Frentzen (Williams) Herbert (Sauber) R. Schumacher (Jordan) Alesi (Benetton) Irvine (Ferrari) Coulthard (McLaren) Hill (Arrows) Larini (Sauber) Verstappen (Tyrrell) Hakkinen (McLaren) Salo (Tyrrell) Nakano (Prost) Magnussen (Stewart) Katayama (Minardi) Diniz (Arrows) Trulli (Minardi) 107% rule

1m 25.755s 1m 26.693s 1m 26.983s 1m 27.017s 1m 27.052s 1m 27.129s 1m 27.169s 1m 27.702s 1m 27.823s 1m 27.979s 1m 28.137s 1m 28.163s 1m 28.932s 1m 29.153s 1m 29.302s 1m 29.426s 1m 29.893s 1m 30.069s 1m 30.376s 1m 30.546s 1m 30.546s 1m 31.269s 1m 31.758s

The Quotes

• Frank Williams was angry at reporsts that he had already signed Villeneuve for the 1998 season: "I have no comment to make at all."

  Villeneuve's manager Craig Pollock also dismissed the speculation in which the Canadian is linked to a new team entering Formula One in 1999 with the funding of 250 million pounds by British American Tobacco using Reynard chassis: "We denied all this stuff in Brazil two weeks ago. This report is just off the pace. That's all there is to say about it. Nothing was happening then and it is the same thing here."

• Villeneuve: "It's looking good for qualifying. But we still have a lot of work to do for the race set-up. I am pleased that there was a new tyre lap there and that the car was good on it. We need to work on the race set-up for the longer runs to ensure that we are competitive. I am sure that there is still a lot of time to come out of the car."