British GP Honda Friday notes

Heinz-Harald Frentzen (Benson and Hedges Jordan Honda) finished fifth fastest to head the Honda quartet in today's free practice session for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. His Jordan Honda team-mate Jarno Trulli completed the highest number of laps, in ninth fastest position. Jacques Villenueve and Oliver Panis (Lucky Strike BAR Honda) recorded the 11th and 12th fastest times overall.

The threatening skies which hung over the track for much of the two one-hour sessions finally gave way in the closing minutes to a downpour of rain but the order was not affected. The McLarens of Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard set the pace followed by the Ferrari pairing of Rubens Barrichello and Michael Schumacher. Frentzen was hard on the heels of the front-runners, setting a lap time of 1:23.877, just two tenths of a second off fourth placed Schumacher.

Heinz-Harald Frentzen
"I really feel we have done our homework today. We know this track very well from testing here, but it could be wet all weekend so we have to be prepared for all circumstances. Traction control makes a big difference in the wet and we have developed our electronic systems very well. It was only wet on certain parts of the track today, so if it rains more heavily tomorrow it will be the first time this year that I have driven in the wet at Silverstone."

Kazutoshi Nishizawa, Technical Director, Honda Racing Development
"In general we are quite comfortable with our work today and did not experience any problems engine-wise. We took account of the variable weather conditions in our set-ups for the race and now the focus will be on producing a strong qualifying configuration."

Tim Holloway, Head of Engineering, Jordan Honda
"It was a usual Friday, working on race set-up. It was important for us to evaluate the tyres today as we have a new tyre that we, along with the other Bridgestone teams, haven't tested before so feel we've done our homework on these and know which direction to take. Heinz had an engine oil leak this morning which was solved quite quickly although lost him a bit of time, but considering this he did a good job today. Both drivers had different agendas to work through so we will now share the data between the two cars."

Malcolm Oastler, Technical Director, BAR Honda
"We haven't had too bad a day today. We put in a good day's work with both drivers to find the best set-up and the tyre choice. We had a little problem with Jacques' car in this afternoon's session but that didn't cost us too dearly. Given the changing weather conditions here today I can't make any predictions because you never know how things may turn out. At this stage in the weekend though, we're all reasonably comfortable. We can now focus on making the cars quicker and hopefully finding the improvement in our qualifying performance that we've been working so hard on."