Saturday Free Practice - Brazilian GP
©
Terms & Conditions

Saturday April 10th, 1999

McLaren still lead the pack

Although the free practice session and the final pre- qualifying set-up changes were brought to a halt 31 minutes prematurely because of a serious accident, the two McLaren- Mercedes still dominated the session with times almost a full second ahead of their rivals. Quickest time went to David Coulthard, who was already quicker than last year's pole winning time. He returned to the pits just before the accident and had an engine failure in the garage, thus would not have taken part in the final runs anyway. Mika Hakkinen was two tenth's slower than his team- mate at the time the session was stopped. Like many of his rivals, he had made set-up changes to his car ready for a quick qualifying lap, but did not get the chance to try them. " It will be a bit of guess work for the set-up for qualifying," said Hakkinen.

Frentzen looking strong

Heinz Harald Frentzen looks like being a strong challenger with the Jordan during qualifying. He took the third fastest time of the session running a heavy fuel load. "I was very happy with the handling of the car , but didn't get a chance to confirm it with a qualifying run," he said. The team are not worried about their oil system problems on both cars yesterday, "The two engines affected were Melbourne engines and the rest of the engines we have here had already been modified to eliminate the problem," said a team spokesman. Damon Hill was seventh fastest, the Englishman most concerned about his choice of tyres for he did not have enough running on the various types to make a well judged decision.

Ferrari fifth and eleventh

Both Michael Schumacher and his Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro team-mate were caught out by the shortened practice neither driver able to try the set up changes they had just implemented before the red flag. Up to that point, Schumacher had made progress with the set-up of his car , setting what was to be the fifth fastest time of the session, but still had to improve it for qualifying. Irvine was 11th quickest, neither driver having run a fresh set of tyres this morning.

In brief..

An overnight re-build of Jean Alesi's Sauber saw the Frenchman a lot happier with the handling to-day, Jean setting sixth fastest time. Pedro Diniz was complaining of understeer from his car and had a spin early in the session. Alex Zanardi's woes at Williams continued when he again spent much of the session in the garage after more engine sensor problems. He ended up 14th, Ralf Schumacher in much better shape with the eighth fastest time. Both Prost drivers were complaining of a lack of traction from their cars, otherwise they were happier with the handling.

Saturday Free Practice - accumulated times:

Pos Driver        Nat  Team                 Time             
 1  Coulthard     GBR  McLaren Mercedes     1:17.035  
 2  Hakkinen      FIN  McLaren Mercedes     1:17.246  +  0.211 
 3  Frentzen      GER  Jordan Mugen-Hond    1:17.962  +  0.927 
 4  Barrichello   BRA  Stewart Ford         1:17.979  +  0.944 
 5  M.Schumacher  GER  Ferrari              1:18.110  +  1.075 
 6  Alesi         FRA  Sauber Petronas      1:18.383  +  1.348 
 7  Hill          GBR  Jordan Mugen-Hond    1:18.415  +  1.380 
 8  R.Schumacher  GER  Williams Supertec    1:18.480  +  1.445 
 9  Herbert       GBR  Stewart Ford         1:18.605  +  1.570 
10  Fisichella    ITA  Benetton Playlife    1:18.635  +  1.600 
11  Irvine        GBR  Ferrari              1:18.682  +  1.647 
12  Diniz         BRA  Sauber Petronas      1:18.738  +  1.703 
13  Wurz          AUT  Benetton Playlife    1:18.896  +  1.861 
14  Zanardi       ITA  Williams Supertec    1:18.930  +  1.895 
15  Trulli        ITA  Prost Peugeot        1:19.037  +  2.002 
16  Villeneuve    CAN  BAR Supertec         1:19.459  +  2.424 
17  Panis         FRA  Prost Peugeot        1:19.578  +  2.543 
18  Zonta         BRA  BAR Supertec         1:19.662  +  2.627 
19  Sarrazin      FRA  Minardi Ford         1:19.984  +  2.949 
20  Takagi        JPN  Arrows TWR           1:20.008  +  2.973 
21  de la Rosa    SPN  Arrows TWR           1:20.295  +  3.260 
22  Gene          SPN  Minardi Ford         1:21.033  +  3.998 

Weather: dry.

All Time Unofficial


Previous  |  News Index  |  Next   ]