Friday March 1st, 2002

German Heinz-Harald Frentzen played down the importance of his times in today's practice session for the season opening Australian Grand Prix and said that he would wait until Saturday's qualifying to judge the pace of his Arrows A23.

"It's not a good idea to try to judge our competitiveness by today's times, we really have to wait until tomorrow for that," said Frentzen, who was signed by the Leafield-based squad to replace Dutchman Jos Verstappen this season. "We got some good work done this morning in the wet conditions.

"It's quite interesting to run here in the wet as this is one of the few times we have seen rain here in Melbourne. I had a small problem with the car but nothing we can't fix."

Frentzen was the quickest of the Arrows duo, setting the 19th quickest time of the session more than five seconds off Michael Schumacher's pace. Teammate Enrique Bernoldi was half a second slower, finishing down in 21st place at the circuit where he made his Formula One debut last year.

However, despite his position and a gearbox problem in the first of the two sessions, the Brazilian was pleased with his day's work.

"The morning session went really well for me today," Bernoldi commented. "The car felt good on a wet and intermediate set-up so I'm pleased about that. I have to say that overall I am pretty happy with the progress we have made so far."

Published at 04:42:34 GMT