Saturday March 3rd, 2001

Briton David Coulthard topped the times in Sunday morning's warm-up for the season-opening Australian Grand Prix after a busy session in damp conditions at Albert Park.

The Scot, driving a McLaren, clocked a best time of one minute and 30.009 seconds to outpace nearest rival and McLaren team-mate Mika Hakkinen of Finland by 0.053 seconds.

The McLaren pair, who were pushed off the front row of the qualifying grid on Saturday for the first time in four years, showed the determination of the team to mount a challenge to Ferrari's Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello in the 58-laps race.

Triple world champion German Schumacher was unable to do better than clock the sixth-best time as Dutchman Jos Verstappen, celebrating his 29th birthday, in his Arrows, Juan-Pablo Montoya of Colombia in his Williams and Frenchman Olivier Panis in his BAR delivered fast laps in the final seconds.

Earlier, Enrique Bernoldi in the other Arrows, had lost his front wing and nose at the start of the session and later spun luridly as he exited the pitlane in the tricky conditions. Young Spaniard Fernando Alonso, 19, driving for Minardi, also went off and on again during the session after briefly topping the times early on.

Coulthard and Ralf Schumacher in his Williams also had off-circuit excursions across the grass at Turn One where most of the drivers appeared to have problems. The top eight cars all topped last year's best warm-up time of 1:31.225 by Brazilian Barrichello's Ferrari.

Pos. Driver        Team                  Times                
 1.  Coulthard     McLaren Mercedes (B)  1:30.099  211.887 km/h
 2.  Hakkinen      McLaren Mercedes (B)  1:30.152    +    0.053
 3.  Verstappen    Arrows Asiatech  (B)  1:30.396    +    0.297
 4.  Montoya       Williams BMW     (M)  1:30.559    +    0.460
 5.  Panis         BAR Honda        (B)  1:30.584    +    0.485
 6.  M.Schumacher  Ferrari          (B)  1:30.839    +    0.740
 7.  Heidfeld      Sauber Petronas  (B)  1:30.966    +    0.867
 8.  Irvine        Jaguar Cosworth  (M)  1:31.061    +    0.962
 9.  Barrichello   Ferrari          (B)  1:31.450    +    1.351
10.  Frentzen      Jordan Honda     (B)  1:31.566    +    1.467
11.  Raikkonen     Sauber Petronas  (B)  1:31.665    +    1.566
12.  Trulli        Jordan Honda     (B)  1:31.811    +    1.712
13.  Bernoldi      Arrows Asiatech  (B)  1:32.106    +    2.007
14.  Villeneuve    BAR Honda        (B)  1:32.108    +    2.009
15.  R.Schumacher  Williams BMW     (M)  1:32.687    +    2.588
16.  Alonso        European Minardi (M)  1:33.717    +    3.618
17.  Mazzacane     Prost Acer       (M)  1:33.747    +    3.648
18.  Burti         Jaguar Cosworth  (M)  1:33.772    +    3.673
19.  Alesi         Prost Acer       (M)  1:34.421    +    4.322
20.  Button        Benetton Renault (M)  1:34.554    +    4.455
21.  Fisichella    Benetton Renault (M)  1:34.572    +    4.473
22.  Marques       European Minardi (M)  1:35.514    +    5.415

All timing unofficial

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