British GP: Minardi Friday notes

SILVERSTONE, ENGLAND, July 5, 2002 - KL Minardi Asiatech drivers Mark Webber and Alex Yoong spent the first day of practice for this Sunday's British Grand Prix splashing through puddles and searching for signs of a dry "line" developing around the high-speed swoops of the Silverstone circuit. Heavy showers periodically soaked the track, providing ideal conditions to sample the two types of rain tyre available from Michelin this weekend and to work on wet-weather chassis set-ups, but little else. Both drivers made progress in these areas, but like most competitors in the Formula One pit lane, they are hoping for better conditions on Saturday so they can seriously attack the challenging Northamptonshire circuit, which remains one of the fastest on the World Championship calendar.

MARK WEBBER Position: 17th Fastest lap: 1 min 37.835 secs

"We had a positive day, but the changeable weather conditions meant we didn't make quite as much progress as we would have liked. This morning, the track was at its best about 15 minutes from the end of the session, but then it deteriorated when the rains came again with about 10 minutes to go. The circuit was a lot quicker in the second session and improving all the time, but then we had a couple of issues that prevented us from getting the best out of the car when the surface was at its driest. We worked through our wet tyre comparison and tried a couple of things in the second session that we thought we might use tomorrow, but they didn't really work out, so we'll revert to our plan from the first session. We're looking forward to Saturday, when hopefully, the weather will be an improvement on today."

ALEX YOONG Position: 18th Fastest lap: 1 min 37.997 secs

"I haven't driven in the wet at Silverstone for a long time, and it was a lot more slippery out there today than I remember. We improved the car as the day went on and we now have a good idea on the direction we want to take if the practice and qualifying sessions tomorrow are wet. Today's sessions were relatively uneventful for me until the last 10 minutes, when I experienced a gearbox problem and spun as a result."

PAUL STODDART, Team Principal

"On a day when the Silverstone weather unfortunately lived up to its notoriously changeable reputation, KL Minardi Asiatech made useful progress developing its chassis settings for what may be a wet qualifying session, and perhaps even a wet race on Sunday. Both Mark and Alex did a good job in the tricky conditions and carried out some useful back-to-back comparisons with the 'heavy' and 'shallow' Michelin wet tyres. We can only hope the rain stops tomorrow to give everyone a chance to fine tune the dry weather handling of their cars."

THE ASIATECH VIEW

Asiatech's engines again showed exemplary reliability in the wet conditions prevailing on the Silverstone circuit during today's practice.

Chassis allocation
PS02/03 - Alex Yoong (No 22)
PS02/04 - Mark Webber(No 23)
PS02/01 - spare