Friday October 11th, 2002

Italy's Jarno Trulli is optimistic of a strong performance in tomorrow's qualifying after a promising start to his Japanese Grand Prix.

"It was a good first day for us," said Trulli, who posted the ninth quickest time in today's practice. "The session was productive as we tried different car set-ups and tyre comparisons and we were able to complete our programme without encountering any problems. Tomorrow, we will have to try and get closer to the top teams.

"I am quite optimistic because we have a new qualifying engine and we seem to be going in the right direction with the car set-up."

Apart from tyre comparison work, the Renault driver today was able to evaluate changes to the car specifications. Both Trulli and teammate Jenson Button will have a new spec engine in tomorrow's qualifying, which the team said is a better unit than the one used at Indianapolis.

Briton Button, in his final race for Renault, wound up 12th quickest.

"A normal day for me," said the Briton at the end of the day. "We worked on tyre evaluation and I was able to run quite a lot of laps. Now we need to make few adjustments to the car and hopefully tomorrow we will be in a position to qualify nearer to the leaders."

Published at 07:30:36 GMT