French GP McLaren Friday notes

West McLaren Mercedes driver David Coulthard set the fastest time of 1:14.935 around the Magny Cours circuit during Free Practice for Sunday's Mobil 1 French Grand Prix. Mika Hakkinen's time of 1: 15.372 was fourth quickest.

West McLaren Mercedes driver David Coulthard set the fastest time of 1:14.935 around the Magny Cours circuit during Free Practice for Sunday's Mobil 1 French Grand Prix. Mika Hakkinen's time of 1: 15.372 was fourth quickest. David completed 35 laps and Mika did 33.

DAVID COULTHARD
'We worked on the car to find a good set-up for the race, and I'm confident that we have made progress. We went through a range of different possibilities and now we will look at the data and continue our work. The grip level was lower than when we tested at the circuit a few weeks ago.'

MIKA HAKKINEN
'Today we were focusing on finding the right configuration for the race and we made progress with the car throughout the session. As always after Friday's practice you can never really tell where you are compared to the competition. Let's see what happens tomorrow.'

RON DENNIS
'An uneventful day. Both drivers were reasonably happy with the cars. Let's hope they feel this way after tomorrow's qualifying.'

NORBERT HAUG
'A good first day without problems and we did some good lap times. The Bridgestone tyres worked well on our cars.'