Friday October 11th, 2002

The McLaren team were encouraged by the performance of their Michelin tyres, as Kimi Raikkonen and David Coulthard were the surprising pace setters in today's practice for the Japanese Grand Prix.

"We are encouraged by our performance today with both types of Michelin tyres working well," said Coulthard. "Unfortunately both my comparison runs were spoilt by traffic in the last sector. During the latter part of the first session, my car developed a hydraulics problem, which necessitated an engine change.

"As a result I didn't do as many laps as I would have liked, but the team did a great job in getting everything ready for the second session."

Finland's Raikkonen, still seeking a first win at the end of his second season in Formula One, lapped nearly half a second faster than Coulthard. His time of one 1:34.232 was considerably slower than Michael Schumacher's 2001 pole of 1:32.484 but the Suzuka circuit has been modified since then.

Raikkonen was 1.170 quicker than Ferrari's Rubens Barrichello with five times World Champion Michael Schumacher sidelined for much of the second session with an hydraulic problem after lapping fastest in the morning.

"Everything went well today, and we spent both sessions working on the set up according to our pre-determined programme," explained Raikkonen. "Suzuka is a tricky circuit as you don't have very large run off areas, and if you lose control you are almost bound to damage the car.

"Tomorrow is a different day and as always we will do our best and see what happens. We still have some way to go and I'm confident that we can optimise our package even further."

Published at 06:26:10 GMT