Austrian GP Friday Practice

After the second Friday practice for the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix it was Juan Pablo Montoya who moved to near the top of the times with an impressive third fastest time with a lap of 1m:10.613. As for Ralf Schumacher he still was down in twelfth struggling to find the correct setup for his car. Ralf said that he has a lot of work to do to find the right balance for his car.

Once again it would be the Ferrari's occupying the two top spots on the times, but Rubens Barrichello would set a time faster than team-mate Michael Schumacher. Rubens time was a 1m:10.549. Rubens continued to carry out further development work. Team-mate Michael Schumacher was second, just three hundredths slower. Michael would have several off-track moments but he was joined by several other drivers. After a difficult morning session McLaren’s Kimi Raikkonen was to move up into fourth ahead of Toyota’s Allan McNish, followed by Arrows’ Enrique Bernoldi, and Pedro de la Rosa. BAR’s Olivier Panis was in eighth. For the Frenchman this is a race that he must be praying that he sees the chequered flag after all his retirements.

David Coulthard, despite improving on his morning time, could only manage ninth fastest, ahead of Jordan’s Takuma Sato, Eddie Irvine, and the other BMW WilliamsF1 of Ralf Schumacher. Heinz-Harald Frentzen was thirteenth with Renault’s Jenson Button fourteenth.

After their strong morning showing the Saubers of Felipe Massa and Nick Heidfeld struggled to improve their times and dropped to the bottom of the times with Massa fifteenth and Heidfeld sixteenth. They were followed by Jarno Trulli and Giancarlo Fisichella, the latter who also did not improve on his earlier time.