Friday September 24th, 1999

McLaren

Mika Hakkinen: "This is an interesting track for a driver as you carry a lot of speed into the corners, but this also means that you have to work hard to get the balance right. Today we have been preparing for the race and concentrating on finding the optimum race configuration for the car. So far everything has gone well and we will continue to focus on improving the car over the weekend."

David Coulthard: "As always we have spent today's free practice sessions experimenting in order to find the best set up for the race on Sunday. I found that as the session progressed I was struggling with some over and under steer, but I will be working with the engineers this afternoon to dial that out and find a good balance for qualifying."

Ron Dennis: "An uneventful practice that inevitably saw the speed of our cars drop as we ran throughout practice on a single set of tyres. The closeness of our competitors reflects the use of new tyres, and of course it is qualifying on Saturday and, more importantly the race on Sunday, that really matters."

Norbert Haug: "A good start to the weekend with Mika being fastest. He is more than half a second quicker than the next fastest competitor who was also using only one set of tyres. I am sure that David will improve tomorrow when the team will concentrate on qualifying."

Ferrari

Mika Salo: "I am reasonably happy with the car although there are still some things I want to fix. I did some work for the team today and concentrated on the race rather than on my own set up. But from different bits of the laps I did today, we have a clear picture of what we have to do tomorrow. I also did some tyre testing. I am confident because I know there is a lot more to come from the car tomorrow. Generally, after all the work we did last week, I can feel the improvement in the car. I don't know if the tyre choice will be difficult, but I do know it will be important."

Eddie Irvine: "All the work we have done over the past few days has paid off and the car is much better, although not perfect. The main effect of the changes which we have made to the car is that we have more grip. At the start of the morning session, I had some difficulties with the tyres and set-up, but then we found a set-up that is promising. I am happy with the car and I think we will be much closer to our main opponents than at the last two races. For tomorrow, I do not know if I can get pole, but I will be aiming for a front row grid position."

Jean Todt: "We concentrated on the race today. Practice went quite well and we have found some good reference points for our work. As usual on Friday, it is difficult to get a clear picture of everyone's true potential."

Prost

Olivier Panis: Despite technical difficulties(a hydraulics leak and the disconnection of the gearbox to fix a screw on the engine timing device) we have all worked in the right direction today. The team has done a terrific job and we have progressed in every way. With a set of new tyres, like everyone else, at the end of the session, I finished third. I hope it augurs well for tomorrow.

Williams

Ralf Schumacher: I am more than happy with today's performance because I am more or less in the position I expected to be. I would be really glad if I could keep this place for tomorrow's qualifying. Also the weather is fine - and looks like it will remain so for tomorrow - which is for sure positive for us. I am quite surprised by the weather conditions, because generally at this time of the year, it is cold and wet at the Nurburgring.

Stewart

Rubens Barrichello: "So far it's not looking too bad but we definitely have to find more speed for qualifying. The car was a little inconsistent. We started the day well but we seemed to get a little confused on set-up. I was able to use the kerbs as I wanted this morning but the car became unstable as the session went on. It's so important to be able to attack the kerbs here so that's something we need to work on tonight."

Johnny Herbert: "We did a lot of work on race set-up and the car feels reasonably good on heavy fuel. I was struggling with understeer which is always the case here so I wasn't able to attack as much I would have liked. Obviously we need to dial out much of that understeer for qualifying tomorrow. I'm not too disheartened over my position today."

Paul Stewart, Stewart-Ford Chief Operating Officer: "We didn't make the progress we had hoped for today. We evaluated both sets of tyres to try and get a direction for tomorrow but there's some work to be done yet on our best set-up option for qualifying. We need to get back on the pace we had at the start of practice today."

Martin Whitaker, Director, Ford Racing, Europe: "We had a trouble-free day with the Series 3 engines during which we continued our work on optimising the engine for the circuit lay out and we are satisfied with the progress made so far."

Jordan

Heinz-Harald Frentzen: "Considering I missed the first session which meant there was not much time to set up the car, I am happy with the progress we made," said Frentzen. "I had oil pressure problem with my gear box and missed the entire first session. I feel pretty optimistic, however, because, on the basis of what we achieved this afternoon, I know we can make further improvements tomorrow morning."

Damon Hill: "I am happy with how much we managed to get done today, given that I lost a good deal of running time. Through no fault of my own I spun off after puncturing my car on a drain grating which had come lose on the track. I was not hurt at all, but there was a fair amount of damage to the car which took a while to fix. The team did a great job to get me out on the circuit in the afternoon and from the work we did in the second session I think we will be competitive tomorrow."