Michael Schumacher dominates the 1st session setting
a time of 1:09.001 which is already faster than the Pole time of last year and
over half a second faster than his team-mate Rubens Barrichello in second
place. Kimi Raikkonen in 3rd was over 1.5 seconds off the pace while Heinz
Harald Frentzen continues to impress in his Arrows taking 4th ahead of Felipe
Massa and David Coulthard.
Once again under track conditions lacking grip and low
temperatures it appears that Bridgestone have an advantage. This should change
during the second session and more importantly during the Qualifying session
(provided the weather remains dry!).
The session was incident free and Michael Schumacher and
Olivier Panis covered the most number of laps with 24. Kimi Raikkonen, Felipe
Massa and David Coulthard covered the least number of laps with 11 each. All
other drivers covered between 13 and 20 laps.
A number of drivers couldn't better their times from the
Friday practice session possibly indicating they were running lighter fuel
loads yesterday. That includes the 2 Minradi's, the 2 Jaguar's and the 2
Williams.
