Friday March 29th, 2002

By Will Gray

David Coulthard recovered from a disappointing morning session at Interlagos to rise to the top of the timesheets in his McLaren-Mercedes on Friday afternoon in practice for Sunday's Brazilian Grand Prix.

Scot Coulthard has already admitted his Championship hopes are slim after two non-finishes from the two races this year, but he boosted his hopes of success in Brazil by finishing almost 0.3 seconds faster than the Williams-BMW of Juan Pablo Montoya as the Michelin tyres used by both teams proved to work well in the hot conditions.

It was a good day for Scotland as Allan McNish finished third in the Toyota, four tenths slower than his countryman Coulthard as the new team, which scored a point on their debut in Australia, continued to out-perform their expectations.

Ralf Schumacher, in the second Williams-BMW, finished fourth ahead of fifth-placed Michael Schumacher, who was the fastest Bridgestone runner but spun once as he continued to work hard on setting up the new F2002 car for the gruelling Interlagos circuit.

McLaren new boy Kimi Raikkonen, from Finland, finished sixth, one place ahead of home hope Rubens Barrichello, who continued to struggle on his local circuit and finished 0.3 seconds slower than his teammate Schumacher in the old Ferrari.

Briton Jenson Button continued to impress with eighth fastest time, but his Renault teammate Jarno Trulli had to sit out most of the session after he made a mistake with the car's launch control system.

Jacques Villeneuve finished ninth for British American Racing and Pedro de la Rosa was tenth to give his Jaguar team a bit of hope after a difficult start to the season.

Jordan new boy Takuma Sato continued to struggle to cope with the bumpy circuit as he spun at turn eight and eventually finished 19th, and Olivier Panis also spun during the session.

Pos  Driver        Team                    Times                 
 1.  Coulthard     McLaren Mercedes   (M)  1:15.075  206.625 km/h
 2.  Montoya       Williams BMW       (M)  1:15.345    +    0.270
 3.  McNish        Toyota             (M)  1:15.450    +    0.375
 4.  R.Schumacher  Williams BMW       (M)  1:15.477    +    0.402
 5.  M.Schumacher  Ferrari            (B)  1:15.627    +    0.552
 6.  Raikkonen     McLaren Mercedes   (M)  1:15.883    +    0.808
 7.  Barrichello   Ferrari            (B)  1:15.933    +    0.858
 8.  Button        Renault            (M)  1:16.054    +    0.979
 9.  Villeneuve    BAR Honda          (B)  1:16.183    +    1.108
10.  de la Rosa    Jaguar Cosworth    (M)  1:16.289    +    1.214
11.  Frentzen      Arrows Cosworth    (B)  1:16.375    +    1.300
12.  Bernoldi      Arrows Cosworth    (B)  1:16.379    +    1.304
13.  Panis         BAR Honda          (B)  1:16.391    +    1.316
14.  Irvine        Jaguar Cosworth    (M)  1:16.424    +    1.349
15.  Salo          Toyota             (M)  1:16.529    +    1.454
16.  Fisichella    Jordan Honda       (B)  1:16.539    +    1.464
17.  Massa         Sauber Petronas    (B)  1:16.548    +    1.473
18.  Heidfeld      Sauber Petronas    (B)  1:16.573    +    1.498
19.  Sato          Jordan Honda       (B)  1:17.624    +    2.549
20.  Webber        Minardi Asiatech   (M)  1:17.714    +    2.639
21.  Trulli        Renault            (M)  1:17.979    +    2.904
22.  Yoong         Minardi Asiatech   (M)  1:18.426    +    3.351

All Timing Unofficial

Published at 17:08:59 GMT