15/03/2002

Malaysian Grand Prix - Free Practice Round Up

Panasonic Toyota Racing enjoyed a productive opening day at Sepang for round two of the F1 World Championship with Mika Salo ending the day fifth just 1.6s behind the fastest time of the day. Allan McNish backed him up with 11th best time after two sessions in oppressive heat and humidity.

Chief Designer Gustav Brunner again pointed out that there was not too much excitement about Salo's time within the Toyota pit because it was set with new tyres on a relatively low level of fuel in order to carry out a tyre comparison.

"It was a reasonable day " Salo said. "We got through quite a lot of work on car balance and we found some good things. We have a few new bits on the car since Australia which have helped."

Salo admitted however that track conditions had been difficult often a problem on the opening day in Malaysia with dust from the sun-baked land around the circuit causing chaos until a layer of rubber goes down. "The track is very slippery which could be seen from the number of spins today " Mika said. "It obviously doesn't help but it's the same for everyone."

"We should make him the King of Friday Mr Salo!" joked Panasonic Toyota Racing chief designer Gustav Brunner.

Allan McNish was satisfied with the outcome of his first day as well especially after losing some time in the opening session.

"We had a few problems in the first hour with an electronic glitch which restricted our running. We got a few laps done in the second session and generally the car is pretty good. The tyres seem to be reasonably stable and although we need to balance the car a little better on them it certainly looks as if Michelin has brought two good sets this weekend."

World Champion Michael Schumacher topped the times at the end of the opening hour in his Bridgestone-shod Ferrari but by the end of the day it was Kimi Raikkonen on top. Raikkonen emerged quickest as the Michelin-shod McLaren-Mercedes cars of the young Finn and team mate David Coulthard finished up first and second.

Michael Schumacher was 1.09s behind the best McLaren time and 0.16s quicker than brother Ralf Schumacher in the first of the Williams-BMWs.

Mika Salo was just 0.41s behind the first Williams and quicker than Juan Pablo Montoya in the second FW24.

Rubens Barrichello was seventh fastest in the second Ferrari ahead of the Renault pair with Jenson Button marginally ahead of team mate Jarno Trulli. Nick Heidfeld completed the top 10 with McNish a mere one-tenth of a second further back in 11th.