Austrian GP Honda Friday notes

Heinz-Harald Frentzen finished today's free practice for the Austrian Grand Prix seventh fastest in his Benson & Hedges Jordan Honda, recovering from a hydraulic glitch that sidelined him for most of the morning session, to lead the Honda-powered quartet. The Lucky Strike BAR Honda pairing of Olivier Panis and Jacques Villeneuve were ninth and 10th respectively while Frentzen's Jordan Honda team-mate finished the day 13th.

The Honda-powered teams were among those to complete the highest number of laps of the A1-Ring today, with Jacques Villenueve clocking up the most of all drivers with a total of 49 laps. Frentzen's problem aside, this reliability allowed Honda to explore different settings in preparation for Sunday's race, while the specifications for qualifying will be the focus of tomorrow morning's free practice.

Heinz-Harald Frentzen Position:
"Today was a bit frustrating as I lost so much time during the first session, but the team worked really hard during the break to rectify the problem. There are still some things to try tomorrow morning on the basic car set-up and I think the car still has more potential, but so far things are good."

Kazutoshi Nishizawa - Technical Director, Honda Racing Development
"It was a good day for us - all four cars had no problems and showed good reliability from an engine perspective. We managed to achieve a high number of laps and the times are good, within about a second of the guys at the front, so all-in-all it looks promising for the weekend"

Tim Holloway, Head of Engineering, Jordan Honda
"It was a difficult day as Heinz lost most of the first session and 10 minutes of the second session due to a hydraulic problem that affected the steering on his car. He did a very good job to recover positions in the last 50 minutes though. Jarno also lost time as he damaged the car's barge boards when he went off the track."

Craig Pollock, Managing Director, BAR Honda
"We had a trouble-free Friday. It was a productive day for us and we are happy to be running fairly quickly. Both Jacques and Olivier are happy with today's performance and both managed to find a good balance. With some good work overnight we will be looking to be more competitive in qualifying tomorrow."