Saturday August 17th, 2002

By Will Gray

World Champion Michael Schumacher continued his near faultless display at the Hungaroring on Saturday morning, when he topped the times ahead of Ferrari teammate Rubens Barrichello in the final session before qualifying for Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix.

The dominant German has now been fastest in the last seven Formula One practice sessions as he continued his dominant display from the last race in Germany, where he topped the times in all but the first practice session, claimed pole, won the race and finished with the fastest lap.

If the trend continues, he is set to equal Briton Jim Clark's record of 11 'hat-tricks' of pole, win and fastest lap, and he showed on Saturday morning that, around the Hungaroring, he has the ability to do just that.

Schumacher fractionally improved on his time from the first Saturday practice session - to a lap of 1:14.308 - and held onto the top spot as Barrichello closed the gap to second to 0.140 seconds.

With temperatures at the track in the outskirts of Budapest rising to 25 degrees by the end of practice, Finn Kimi Raikkonen improved his time to move into third place as the first Michelin-shod runner, with the warming conditions suiting the French rubber.

But the McLaren-Mercedes driver was still a massive 1.438 seconds slower than German Schumacher as the Italian Ferrari team continued their impressive preparation for a race in which they could win the constructors' championship.

All they have to do is maintain their 65-point advantage over closest rival Williams-BMW, whose drivers Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya and German Ralf Schumacher ended the final practice in 4th and 8th positions respectively.

Brazilian Felipe Massa was fifth fastest for Sauber, with Frenchman Olivier Panis of BAR Honda sixth and Jordan Honda's Italian driver Giancarlo Fisichella seventh.

German Nick Heidfeld finished ninth in the second Sauber, with Italian Jarno Trulli completing the top ten for Renault with a lap of one minute and 16.311 seconds, more than two seconds slower than Schumacher.

Minardi drivers Mark Webber and Anthony Davidson managed to find some more speed after both finishing the second session outside the 107 percent mark they need to beat to qualify on Saturday afternoon.

Webber, who admitted after the first practice that he was concerned over a difficulty to make handling improvements to the car, moved past the one minute 19 seconds barrier with a time of one minute 18.320 seconds, while debutant Davidson finished just more than a tenth behind.

Pos  Driver        Team                   Time                    Laps
 1.  M.Schumacher  Ferrari           (B)  1:14.308  192.577 km/h  23  
 2.  Barrichello   Ferrari           (B)  1:14.469    +    0.161  29  
 3.  Raikkonen     McLaren Mercedes  (M)  1:15.746    +    1.438  26  
 4.  Montoya       Williams BMW      (M)  1:15.912    +    1.604  26  
 5.  Massa         Sauber Petronas   (B)  1:15.944    +    1.636  32  
 6.  Panis         BAR Honda         (B)  1:16.140    +    1.832  30  
 7.  Fisichella    Jordan Honda      (B)  1:16.201    +    1.893  27  
 8.  R.Schumacher  Williams BMW      (M)  1:16.236    +    1.928  26  
 9.  Heidfeld      Sauber Petronas   (B)  1:16.300    +    1.992  30  
10.  Trulli        Renault           (M)  1:16.311    +    2.003  28  
11.  Coulthard     McLaren Mercedes  (M)  1:16.348    +    2.040  28  
12.  Salo          Toyota            (M)  1:16.515    +    2.207  25  
13.  de la Rosa    Jaguar Cosworth   (M)  1:16.631    +    2.323  29  
14.  McNish        Toyota            (M)  1:16.710    +    2.402  23  
15.  Villeneuve    BAR Honda         (B)  1:16.710    +    2.402  33  
16.  Button        Renault           (M)  1:16.790    +    2.482  24  
17.  Sato          Jordan Honda      (B)  1:16.844    +    2.536  29  
18.  Irvine        Jaguar Cosworth   (M)  1:17.478    +    3.170  25  
19.  Webber        Minardi Asiatech  (M)  1:18.320    +    4.012  24  
20.  Davidson      Minardi Asiatech  (M)  1:18.483    +    4.175  35  

All Timing Unofficial

Published at 09:05:09 GMT

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