Saturday April 5th, 2003

By Gary Emmerson

Ferrari driver Rubens Barrichello claimed top spot in Saturday's opening practice session for the Brazilian Grand Prix in front of his home crowd at Interlagos.

Barrichello set the pace in the 45-minute session with a lap time of 1:14.071 to finish marginally quicker than the Williams-BMW pairing of Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya. Schumacher and Montoya, who both struggled for performance in the wet on Friday qualifying, benefited from the warmer conditions in Sao Paulo on Saturday morning.

World Champion Michael Schumacher was fourth quickest, more than three tenths of a second slower than Ferrari teammate Barrichello, with Renault's Fernando Alonso fifth in the times. McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen was sixth quickest, with Jaguar's Antonio Pizzonia and Mark Webber continuing their positive weekend in seventh and eighth respectively.

McLaren driver David Coulthard ended a largely incident-free session ninth in the times with Sauber driver Nick Heidfeld completing the top ten. All drivers had taken the opportunity to work on a dry track immediately when the session opened following the torrential rain-hit sessions on Friday.

Sauber driver Heinz-Harald Frentzen went wide and left the track at turn 2 with 11 minutes gone in the session, but was able to return to the circuit and continue his run. Ralf Schumacher also had an off-track excursion when he was caught out at turn 1 briefly, but like Frentzen he returned to the track.

Toyota's Olivier Panis also left the track, this time at turn 12, but continued his run without problems late in the practice session.

Pos  Driver        Team                   Time                    Laps
 1.  Barrichello   Ferrari           (B)  1:14.071  209.426 km/h  18  
 2.  R.Schumacher  Williams BMW      (M)  1:14.192    +    0.121  21  
 3.  Montoya       Williams BMW      (M)  1:14.388    +    0.317  20  
 4.  M.Schumacher  Ferrari           (B)  1:14.419    +    0.348  13  
 5.  Alonso        Renault           (M)  1:14.545    +    0.474  21  
 6.  Raikkonen     McLaren Mercedes  (M)  1:14.557    +    0.486  15  
 7.  Pizzonia      Jaguar Cosworth   (M)  1:14.613    +    0.542  24  
 8.  Webber        Jaguar Cosworth   (M)  1:14.646    +    0.575  23  
 9.  Coulthard     McLaren Mercedes  (M)  1:14.702    +    0.631  17  
10.  Heidfeld      Sauber Petronas   (B)  1:14.744    +    0.673  17  
11.  Fisichella    Jordan Ford       (B)  1:14.788    +    0.717  16  
12.  Panis         Toyota            (M)  1:14.815    +    0.744  19  
13.  Trulli        Renault           (M)  1:14.841    +    0.770  14  
14.  Villeneuve    BAR Honda         (B)  1:14.867    +    0.796  28  
15.  da Matta      Toyota            (M)  1:14.912    +    0.841  21  
16.  Frentzen      Sauber Petronas   (B)  1:14.991    +    0.920  16  
17.  Button        BAR Honda         (B)  1:15.291    +    1.220  24  
18.  Verstappen    Minardi Cosworth  (B)  1:15.951    +    1.880  15  
19.  Firman        Jordan Ford       (B)  1:16.281    +    2.210  12  
20.  Wilson        Minardi Cosworth  (B)  1:16.676    +    2.605  13  

All Timing Unofficial

Published at 12:49:10 GMT

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