Friday October 11th, 2002

Finland's Mika Salo was pleasantly surprised by his pace in today's practice sessions for the Japanese Grand Prix.

The Toyota driver, competing in his final Formula One Grand Prix, had already tested with the Japanese squad at the Suzuka circuit last year and said he was not expecting to be so high on the timesheets in today's practice. Salo wound up 11th quickest.

"No major problems today," he said. "The car is working quite fine and we concentrated on preparations for the race, as usual for a Friday - car set-up, tyres and tyre pressures. We did quite a lot of laps, doing long runs to see the effects on the tyres and things seem quite good.

"It's a bit surprising. We had some difficulties when we tested here last year and things went better than I expected today."

Scot Allan McNish, who will also leave Toyota at the end of this season, posted the 14th quickest time, completing a promising start for the Japanese squad's first home Grand Prix.

"It's been quite a usual Friday session, trying to get a good balance on the car and trying to work out what to do on tyre choice," said the Scot. "I think Michelin have brought a tyre that works well on our car and gives a good balance.

"We have to work on variable grip levels around the track and we had some understeer in places, but I am sure that is curable before tomorrow's sessions."

Published at 06:38:00 GMT