Hard Times and Fast Speeds

Prost has torrid time Prost Grand Prix have had an awful start to the Australian Grand Prix, landing 21st and 22nd in the practice sessions today. "Clearly, this is not the kind of first day of the championship to give us any pleasure as one ...

Prost has torrid time

Prost Grand Prix have had an awful start to the Australian Grand Prix, landing 21st and 22nd in the practice sessions today.

"Clearly, this is not the kind of first day of the championship to give us any pleasure as one can see in our performances. But you have to start somewhere and it is our job now to work very hard to solve the problems we have found in order to finish our preparations. We have to find the right way to work with the car and then we can quickly find our true level." said Alesi.

Alain Prost, the team boss, said "Obviously it is difficult to arrive at the first Grand Prix and to be punished for our lack of preparation. As we expected, this opening day of practice has been, for us, a first true test of the car. We have launched into work on the points we had not been able to deal with before."

Villeneuve suprised at speed of BAR-Honda

Jacques Villeneuve expressed himself to be suprised at the speed of the BAR Honda so far.

"To be honest, I am a little surprised at today's showing, but it is very encouraging for everyone. I think the Ferraris and McLarens are pretty much untouchable at the moment but today we were the next best. The car has been very good all day and we found a nice balance, particularly in the high-speed corners. It's good to be racing for real after all the testing."

Craig Pollock of BAR said Our positions today say a lot about the amount of work the team has put in over the winter months. The fact that Jacques and Ricardo have posted times within 0.3 seconds of one another also shows we are there or thereabouts. It is extremely difficult in pre-season testing to get a feel for where you are in relation to the other teams since you never know in exactly what specification they are running their cars. In any event, today's performance makes for a good start to the season."

Takefumi Hosak of Honda said More than the position we have achieved today, what made me most happy was that many of the engineers including myself, for whom F1 is a new experience, will have gained a lot of confidence from the performance of the car. The top two teams are obviously very strong, but we are not concerned about this gap. First we must concentrate on making it into the top ten, then scoring points. We will take the programme step by step."