Friday March 10th, 2000

Gaston Mazzacane won the early battle of Formula One's new recruits, posting the 12th fastest time in Friday's practice session for the Australian Grand Prix.

The Argentine finished a clear winner in his early clash with the sport's two other debutants, Briton Jenson Button and Nick Heidfeld of Germany.

Button finished 18th overall after spending most of the first session trying to familarise himself with the extra horsepower of an F1 while Heidfeld finished at the tail of the 22-car field after car problems.

Mazzacane was understandably thrilled with his debut after overcoming a nervous preparation to clock a time of one minute 33.988 seconds, faster than his more experienced Minardi team mate Marc Gene.

"I'm delighted with my first day," the 24-year-old Mazzacane said.

"I was fairly excited and I thought I would make a few mistakes but when I took to the track I felt calmer and I was able to drive with much more concentration."

Button, who at 20 is the youngest-ever British driver in Formula One, completed 40 laps in the two one-hour sessions, five more than any of the other drivers at the circuit.

Importantly, he improved as the day went on, setting his best lap of 1:34.547 six minutes before the end of the session.

Like Mazzacane, the Briton admitted to a case of nerves but said he had learnt a lot from his first big day out and was confident of going quicker in Saturday's official qualifying.

"I must say that it was a bit scary because there was a lot of dust on the track and it was very slippery," he said.

"But I think my first practice session in F1 went well... even though I don't really think the time we have set reflects how we are going."

Heidfeld was the most disappointed of the three new drivers.

Considered the most likely of the trio to make a successful leap to Formula One after winning last year's F3000 championship, he was hampered by problems with his Prost car.

The 22-year-old German slid off during the morning practice session then had problems with the car's rear-end during the afternoon run.

"I started this day with a lot of optimism and without too much pressure," said Heidfeld, whose best lap was 1:35.997.

"Unfortunately, we had braking problems in the morning and I went off after just seven laps.

"We made several set-up modifications (for the afternoon), which gave us appreciable improvement but the car remained very unstable."