Saturday April 27th, 2002

By Will Gray

Ferrari continued to hold their position at the top of the times in Barcelona, when Rubens Barrichello set a time faster than last year's pole to out-pace his World Champion teammate Michael Schumahcer in Saturday's first practice for the Spanish Grand Prix.

In overcast conditions that were seven degrees cooler than the temperatures seen on Friday, Barrichello drove a sensational lap to set a time of 1:18.048, beating Michael Schumacher's previous best by 0.153 seconds.

The Brazilian driver's time was almost half a second faster than Schumacher's best of the session and the pair were once again almost one second faster than their closest rival, this time Briton David Coulthard in the McLaren-Mercedes.

The Williams-BMW drivers Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya saw an improvement in form, after setting only 15th and 17th fastest times on Friday. This time they finished fourth and ninth respectively.

The Sauber pair also showed they are likely to be competitive once again on the Barcelona track, with German Nick Heidfeld just shading his Brazilian teammate Felipe Massa to claim fifth spot.

Finn Kimi Raikkonen ensured both McLarens-Mercedes out-paced the increasingly competitive Renault cars by taking seventh place, but he was just seven thousandths of a second ahead of Briton Jenson Button, in the Renault.

The session was stopped after 17 minutes when the front wing on Australian Mark Webber's Minardi collapsed and became stuck underneath the car, grinding carbon fibre shards over the track on the main straight.

But after an eight-minute break, the cars returned to the track and Barrichello put in his unbeatable lap to throw down the gauntlet to his usually dominant teammate Schumacher.

Jordan-Honda driver Takuma Sato, struggling after missing one of the Friday sessions with a sensor problem, had a minor spin at turn nine, in the same place Scot Allan McNish had lost control of his Toyota earlier. Both drivers continued but finished well down the times in 16th and 21st respectively.

Pos  Driver        Team                    Times                  laps
 1.  Barrichello   Ferrari            (B)  1:18.048  218.173 km/h   8 
 2.  M.Schumacher  Ferrari            (B)  1:18.434    +    0.386   8 
 3.  Coulthard     McLaren Mercedes   (M)  1:19.075    +    1.027   7 
 4.  R.Schumacher  Williams BMW       (M)  1:19.367    +    1.319   7 
 5.  Heidfeld      Sauber Petronas    (B)  1:19.476    +    1.428  10 
 6.  Massa         Sauber Petronas    (B)  1:19.535    +    1.487   7 
 7.  Raikkonen     McLaren Mercedes   (M)  1:19.562    +    1.514   8 
 8.  Button        Renault            (M)  1:19.567    +    1.519   8 
 9.  Montoya       Williams BMW       (M)  1:19.574    +    1.526   7 
10.  Bernoldi      Arrows Cosworth    (B)  1:19.688    +    1.640  13 
11.  Panis         BAR Honda          (B)  1:19.901    +    1.853  10 
12.  Frentzen      Arrows Cosworth    (B)  1:19.904    +    1.856   8 
13.  Villeneuve    BAR Honda          (B)  1:20.321    +    2.273  12 
14.  Fisichella    Jordan Honda       (B)  1:20.474    +    2.426   9 
15.  Trulli        Renault            (M)  1:20.614    +    2.566   8 
16.  Sato          Jordan Honda       (B)  1:21.072    +    3.024  16 
17.  Salo          Toyota             (M)  1:21.133    +    3.085   9 
18.  de la Rosa    Jaguar Cosworth    (M)  1:21.251    +    3.203  11 
19.  Irvine        Jaguar Cosworth    (M)  1:21.343    +    3.295  14 
20.  McNish        Toyota             (M)  1:21.725    +    3.677   6 
21.  Webber        Minardi Asiatech   (M)  1:22.152    +    4.104   4 
22.  Yoong         Minardi Asiatech   (M)  1:23.061    +    5.013  11 

All Timing Unofficial

Published at 07:55:39 GMT

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