Japanese GP Friday Benetton notes

Giancarlo Fisichella:
"This was a good and satisfying day. We did lots of runs and made good progress with the car and achieved a good balance. Even though our times do not seem very high we know we are in a strong position for the weekend. It'a pity Alex got hardly any running in, but hopefully we did enough work on my car to help both of us tomorrow."

Alexander Wurz:
"On my first run this morning I had a problem with the oil system on the car and so I came in before we did any irreparable damage. We changed the engine then as I went out for my first run in the second session the same thing happened again. It seems the circuit is not good for our engines, but hopefully we identified the problem today so we can be competitive for the rest of the weekend."

Pat Symonds:
"Although our positions on the timesheet are relatively low, this was a conventional Friday for Giancarlo working on race set-up which is so important for this circuit. We remained on a high level of fuel and only one set of tyres and are satisfied with what we learned. Alex had an unfortunate day due to an oil system problem which meant he only did two flying laps all day. He can, I hope, adopt some of the lessons learnt from Giancarlo's car to put him in a better position for tomorrow. He has however lost valuable track time on this circuit that is so challenging for drivers."