Seems like the new contract happens to be the good omen for Barrichello who dominated today’s practice session. Reliability and how well the Bridgestones have complemented Ferrari is another factor behind the teams total domination of F1 season thus far. Will have more after the qualifying rounds tomorrow. Ali_R shame on you for not covering the home coming of F1. Enjoy the Austrian GP weekend.
http://www.formula1.com
Rubens Baarrichello outpaced his team mate Michael Schumacher in Friday practice at the A1-Ring, the day after Ferrari announced that he had been re-signed for a further two years as Schumacher’s team mate.
The Brazilian’s time of 1.10.549 just cleared his German colleague’s 1.10.579, and was 7/10ths of a second faster than the best time in Friday practice last year.
“In general, it has been a good day,” he said in a Ferrari press release. “Right at the end of the morning session, I went off the track after I locked the front wheels under braking. This afternoon, we concentrated mainly on the tyres and, as usual here, the grip on the track will improve still further tomorrow.”
Schumacher, who uncharacteristically put in several scrappy looking laps on the green track, was not perturbed to be second. “Things have gone smoothly today. We had a few little excursions into the gravel, but on this circuit that is quite normal,” he commented.
“We are moving forward in the right way but the competition is close, with four cars within one tenth of a second. I am happy with the performance of my tyres and I expected Rubens to be very quick here. As usual on the first day at this circuit, the track surface was very slippery. I expect qualifying will see a very close battle tomorrow.”
Sporting director Jean Todt also refused to make much of the results. “At the risk of repeating myself, I have to say this was a standard Friday. We are pleased with the way the two hours of practice went, during which time we worked mainly towards Sunday’s race,” he stated.
“We know that brakes are very important at this track. The cars went well and I am very satisfied with the work Bridgestone has done. For tomorrow, I think we have everything in place to get both our cars on the two front rows.”
Technical director Ross Brawn added: "At the start of the day, the Bridgestones seemed to have a big advantage, but the performance gap to the others closed up and the situation was more what we had expected.
“Towards the end of the afternoon, there was a lot of dirt on the track, which made it hard to do useful work. The tyres were quite well balanced and we have already made our tyre choice for qualifying and the race as it is quite clear which type we want to use.”
[This message has been edited by Abdullah k (edited May 11, 2002).]
[This message has been edited by Abdullah k (edited May 11, 2002).]