Friday October 11th, 2002

The Minardi team endured a bizarre start to their Japanese Grand Prix weekend after Alex Yoong's car caught fire inside the garage.

"After a strong performance from both drivers in today's two practice sessions, sadly a gearbox oil fire on Alex's car resulted in a large amount of fire retardant dust infiltrating our garages, and in particular, our computer equipment," explained Minardi boss Paul Stoddart.

"While every attempt will be made to clean everything, sadly, the dust managed to get into every nook and cranny. That aside, the performance of the cars today, and in particular that of the tyres, indicates there is good reason for the team to look forward to a competitive weekend here at Suzuka."

Despite the incident, the team enjoyed a promising start to their Grand Prix, with Australian Mark Webber finishing in 18th position, being sandwiched by the two Honda-powered British American Racing cars of Olivier Panis and Jacques Villeneuve.

Malaysian Alex Yoong, in what is likely to be his final Formula One Grand Prix, finished at the bottom of the times more than a second behind Webber.

Published at 08:18:01 GMT