16/08/2002

Hungarian Grand Prix - Free Practice Round-Up

Panasonic Toyota Racing began preparations at the Hungaroring today for the Hungarian Grand Prix - round 13 of the FIA Formula 1 World Championship. It is the second time that the team has visited Budapest after a three-day session with its TF101 test car in September last year.

The Hungaroring is one of the most physical circuits on the calendar and demands a high downforce set-up on the car which places a greater emphasis on traction and mechanical grip. At the end of the opening day's practice Mika Salo was 15th quickest with a best lap of 1m18.890s while team mate Allan McNish was three places further back with a 1m19.171 best.

"There were some small electronic things that we need to work on but nothing major " Salo said. "I'm pretty happy about the race balance but we will have to work tomorrow for qualifying. I didn't want to push too hard and risk going off the circuit which is always very slippery."

McNish by contrast felt that there was some way to go before achieving a set-up he is happy with.

"It's been difficult to get a balance on the car " admitted the 32-year-old Scot. "It's oversteering very aggressively at the moment but we will run through our programme and do some work tonight to try to improve the consistency. We had a small electronic problem in the afternoon session but apart from that there was no mechanical problems at all on the car."

Team manager Ange Pasquali added: "The circuit was very dirty and that was demonstrated by the fact that so many people slid off the circuit. It is always difficult to gather meaningful data in these conditions but it is the same for everyone."

Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro once again dominated proceedings at the front of the filed with five time world champion Michael Schumacher setting the fastest lap of the day in 1m16.346s. Next up was team mate Rubens Barrichello ahead of BMW F1 Team driver Ralf Schumacher who was just 0.06s ahead of Kimi Raikkonen in the faster of the West McLaren Mercedes cars. Then came the DHL Jordan-Honda entries with Giancarlo Fisichella fifth and Japanese team mate Takuma Sato sixth.