27/09/2002

United States Grand Prix - Free Practice Round-Up

Panasonic Toyota Racing has made a solid start to the United States Grand Prix at Indianapolis the penultimate round of this season's Formula 1 World Championship. At the end of the opening day's free practice Mika Salo is in 12th place with a lap in 1m15.421s and Allan McNish is 14th on 1m15.589s.

What is more impressive is that it is the first time Panasonic Toyota Racing has driven at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Before this morning's two free practice sessions the only information the team had available was from simulations carried out back at the team's factory in Cologne.

Finnish driver Salo said: "So far everything has been okay for us. We have some new aerodynamic parts on the car and the day was really about evaluating what we will need for the race on Sunday."

Allan McNish meanwhile suffered a driveshaft problem on his installation lap in the first session. "I don't think we have found the right set-up yet " the Scot said "but I was able to do a tyre comparison and I'm pretty happy with what we should have for the race. The circuit has some highly contrasting parts and you see quite a variance of downforce levels. You can run some downforce when you are lapping on your own but with the long front straight you have to have straightline speed on race day so there probably won't be a lot of choice then."

Keizo Takahashi Technical Co-Ordinator for the team summed up the sessions: "For our first run at Indianapolis we achieved quite a good set-up thanks to Mika's previous experience at this track. Allan also put in an impressive performance considering it is his first time driving at Indy."

Michael Schumacher was the only driver to get beneath 1m14s on the opening day the world champion stopping the clocks in 1m13.548s for Scuderia Marlboro Ferrari. Eddie Irvine's Jaguar Racing entry was second quickest ahead of the West McLaren Mercedes pair David Coulthard and Kimi Raikkonen. Jacques Villeneuve back at the venue of his Indy 500 win back in 1995 was fifth fastest for British American Racing Honda fractionally quicker than Heinz-Harald Frentzen who returns to Formula 1 for Sauber Petronas in place of Brazilian Felipe Massa.

The United States Grand Prix has added value for Panasonic Toyota Racing due to the fact that the city of Indianapolis is twinned with none other than the team's home city of Cologne!