Friday March 15th, 2002

Sauber drivers Nick Heidfeld and Felipe Massa enjoyed different fortunes in Friday's practice for the Malaysian Grand Prix.

The Swiss squad, who are backed by Malaysian company Petronas, saw German Nick Heidfeld finishing in a promising tenth place, being the quickest of the Bridgestone runners behind the two Ferraris of Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello.

"Things went quite well for me right from the start of the morning session," Heidfeld said. "We made some changes to improve the balance of the car, but I wanted to do a longer run at the end and was frustrated because there were so many yellow flags.

"Overall I'm happy though, because I didn't have any problems and it felt quite comfortable in the cockpit despite the high temperatures."

Brazilian Massa, driving at the Sepang circuit for the first time today, was not as pleased as his teammate after spinning off the track and finishing down in 21st place, more than two seconds behind Heidfeld.

Massa, however, admitted that he had enjoyed driving at the Malaysian track.

"I like this circuit," said Massa. "It's a bit more difficult to learn than Melbourne, but I was quite pleased with my runs this morning. I think it was still quite dirty today because a lot of people spun. Unfortunately I was one of them.

"I saw Bernoldi go off, then suddenly I lost the back end of my car. I don't know if there was anything on the surface, but it snapped out of line pretty quickly."

Published at 10:47:36 GMT