Sunday July 21st, 2002

By Will Gray

The Ferrari pair of Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello topped the times in Sunday morning's warm-up for the French Grand Prix, with the champion-elect claiming the top spot ahead of his Brazilian teammate.

Schumacher set a time of 1:14.147 seconds to lead the field by more than seven tenths of a second as pole man Juan Pablo Montoya, of Williams-BMW, struggled to get out of the garage.

Montoya's race preparations seemed to be hampered by problems in the Williams pit. He set his first flying lap with five minutes of the session to go and only managed eight laps, while Schumacher completed 18.

Italian Jarno Trulli, of Renault, finished third fastest but was more than a second behind the lead Ferrari, while the Saubers of Brazilian youngster Felipe Massa and German Nick Heidfeld were fourth and fifth.

The clear skies over the Magny-Cours circuit sent temperatures up to 20 degrees by the end of the session, but four of the top five drivers were running on Bridgestone tyres even though warm weather is believed to favour Michelins.

Trulli was the only Michelin runner in the top five, but after that it was all French rubber, with his teammate Jenson Button in sixth place, Finn Kimi Raikkonen seventh for McLaren-Mercedes, Eddie Irvine in the Jaguar in eighth and David Coulthard, in the second McLaren-Mercedes, ninth.

Frenchman Olivier Panis finished off the top ten in his British American Racing Honda, but the Williams cars struggled, as is usual in the warm-up session, as Ralf Schumacher spun and finished 12th and Montoya ended up 14th.

Pos  Driver        Team                   Time                    Laps
 1.  M.Schumacher  Ferrari           (B)  1:14.174  206.320 km/h  18  
 2.  Barrichello   Ferrari           (B)  1:14.888    +    0.714  12  
 3.  Trulli        Renault           (M)  1:15.455    +    1.281  12  
 4.  Massa         Sauber Petronas   (B)  1:15.519    +    1.345  14  
 5.  Heidfeld      Sauber Petronas   (B)  1:15.534    +    1.360  15  
 6.  Button        Renault           (M)  1:15.673    +    1.499  15  
 7.  Raikkonen     McLaren Mercedes  (M)  1:15.714    +    1.540  13  
 8.  Irvine        Jaguar Cosworth   (M)  1:15.804    +    1.630  12  
 9.  Coulthard     McLaren Mercedes  (M)  1:15.817    +    1.643  15  
10.  Panis         BAR Honda         (B)  1:16.058    +    1.884  13  
11.  Sato          Jordan Honda      (B)  1:16.068    +    1.894  12  
12.  R.Schumacher  Williams BMW      (M)  1:16.184    +    2.010  16  
13.  de la Rosa    Jaguar Cosworth   (M)  1:16.612    +    2.438  15  
14.  Montoya       Williams BMW      (M)  1:16.755    +    2.581   8  
15.  Villeneuve    BAR Honda         (B)  1:16.821    +    2.647  14  
16.  Salo          Toyota            (M)  1:16.889    +    2.715  16  
17.  McNish        Toyota            (M)  1:17.056    +    2.882  15  
18.  Webber        Minardi Asiatech  (M)  1:17.873    +    3.699  15  
19.  Yoong         Minardi Asiatech  (M)  1:19.045    +    4.871  13  

All Timing Unofficial

Published at 08:06:47 GMT

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