Japanese GP McLaren Friday notes

JAPANESE GRAND PRIX 1998 - FRIDAY

CHASSIS NUMBERS: Mika Hakkinen: MP4 - 13 / 04 MH - Spare: MP4 - 13 / 07 David Coulthard: MP4 - 13 / 03 DC - Spare: MP4 - 13 / 05

The West McLaren Mercedes team worked through their usual Friday race set up programme, which saw Mika Hakkinen post a fastest time of 1:40.644 putting him in fifth position. David Coulthard was just over two tenths behind him with a 1:40.845 which put him fractions behind his team mate in sixth place.

MIKA HAKKINEN 'We carried out a routine practice session today, concentrating on the balance for the race. The car ran reliably, it was strong and we completed a good number of laps, so I am very pleased.'

DAVID COULTHARD 'We devised a programme which worked on the balance of the car for tomorrow and the race. Once all the teams are in the same condition for qualifying we will know exactly where we stand.'

RON DENNIS 'As always we are concentrating on our race set up which means lap times are immaterial at this stage; they purely reflect difficulties with traffic and yellow flags.'

NORBERT HAUG 'The result has little significance. Mika and David had to abandon their fast laps when Alesi and Irvine had an off. In the end Mika was under way with his best split times when he was held up by traffic in the last chicane.'