Friday August 30th, 2002

By Will Gray

Rubens Barrichello continued his winning form from the Hungarian Grand Prix when he topped the times ahead of Ferrari teammate Michael Schumacher in Friday's opening practice for this weekend's Belgian Grand Prix.

The pair, split by just 0.025 seconds, firmed up predictions that they will be the men to beat around the Spa-Francorchamps circuit by beating the rest of the field by more than a second.

Barrichello finished with a time of 1:49.009, pipping his teammate late in the session and placing himself 1.046 seconds ahead of third-placed David Coulthard, of McLaren-Mercedes.

After an hour's delay due to fog the opening practice session, shortened from an hour to 30 minutes, got underway at 12pm local time with almost all the drivers coming out on track immediately. But there was nothing they could do to stop Ferrari's continued charge.

Italian Jarno Trulli was fourth fastest in the leading Michelin-shod Renault as temperatures sat at just 20 degrees, normally perfect conditions for their rivals on Bridgestone tyres. Finn Kimi Raikkonen, of McLaren-Mercedes, and Ulsterman Eddie Irvine, in a Jaguar, were both on Michelin rubber and finished fifth and sixth, but the latter was more than two seconds slower than the Ferrari pair.

Japan's Takuma Sato, of Jordan, Briton Jenson Button in the second Renault, Finn Mika Salo, of Toyota, and German Ralf Schumacher in the lead Williams-BMW finished off the top ten. Schumacher's Williams-BMW teammate Juan Pablo Montoya failed to set a competitive time and spent almost the entire session standing in the pits as his mechanics and engineers worked on a problem with his car.

But there were even more problems at Arrows, whose cars remained in the garages with Enrique Bernoldi standing around and Heinz-Harald Frentzen, the other nominated driver, already having made clear he would not turn up. The team are still waiting for a conclusion on their potential sale, but for the rest of the teams the session provided crucial minutes to prepare their cars for the challenges of the daunting circuit.

All drivers took things cautiously in the 30-minute practice, the delay of which had halved their time between the first and second sessions, and there were no early spinners.

Pos  Driver        Team                   Time                    Laps
 1.  Barrichello   Ferrari           (B)  1:49.009  230.117 km/h   8  
 2.  M.Schumacher  Ferrari           (B)  1:49.034    +    0.025   8  
 3.  Coulthard     McLaren Mercedes  (M)  1:50.055    +    1.046  10  
 4.  Trulli        Renault           (M)  1:50.861    +    1.852   9  
 5.  Raikkonen     McLaren Mercedes  (M)  1:50.876    +    1.867   7  
 6.  Irvine        Jaguar Cosworth   (M)  1:51.202    +    2.193   6  
 7.  Sato          Jordan Honda      (B)  1:51.517    +    2.508  12  
 8.  Button        Renault           (M)  1:51.610    +    2.601   9  
 9.  Salo          Toyota            (M)  1:51.717    +    2.708   8  
10.  R.Schumacher  Williams BMW      (M)  1:51.759    +    2.750  10  
11.  McNish        Toyota            (M)  1:51.772    +    2.763   8  
12.  Heidfeld      Sauber Petronas   (B)  1:51.854    +    2.845   9  
13.  Fisichella    Jordan Honda      (B)  1:51.917    +    2.908   9  
14.  de la Rosa    Jaguar Cosworth   (M)  1:52.089    +    3.080   4  
15.  Villeneuve    BAR Honda         (B)  1:52.455    +    3.446  12  
16.  Panis         BAR Honda         (B)  1:52.513    +    3.504  12  
17.  Massa         Sauber Petronas   (B)  1:52.755    +    3.746   9  
18.  Davidson      Minardi Asiatech  (M)  1:54.354    +    5.345  11  
19.  Webber        Minardi Asiatech  (M)  1:54.356    +    5.347   8  
20.  Montoya       Williams BMW      (M)  2:17.158    +   28.149   3  

All Timing Unofficial

Published at 10:33:07 GMT

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