Thursday May 23rd, 2002

By Will Gray

Italian Jarno Trulli topped the times for Renault after Thursday's first day of practice for this weekend's Monaco Grand Prix with a late lap that prevented Toyota's Allan McNish from claiming the glory in a session that was red-flagged when Minardi's Alex Yoong collided with the barriers and saw four drivers were left with wrecked cars after colliding with the barriers.

At the overcast harbourside street circuit, Trulli set a fastest lap of 1:18.915 to beat Scot McNish by almost half a second, as World Champion Michael Schumacher, who is bookies' favourite for Sunday's race, languished in 11th place for Ferrari.

McNish's countryman David Coulthard, of McLaren, claimed third place with Jordan's Giancarlo Fisichella fourth, the second Toyota of Mika Salo fifth, and Ralf Schumacher sixth in the fastest Williams-BMW.

Rubens Barrichello was the fastest Ferrari, in seventh place, with Minardi's Mark Webber reaching the dizzy heights of eighth, just more than one second off Trulli's pace.

Juan Pablo Montoya made it two Williams-BMW cars in the top ten with ninth fastest time despite a hairy moment when he went on at the Mirabeau corner, and Jenson Button, who crashed there late in the session, completed the top ten for Renault.

Yoong stopped the session after five minutes when he collided with the barriers in front of diners in the restaurant at La Rascasse. The Malaysian driver briefly locked up his wheels and slid into the awaiting barrier on the inside of the corner. The impact sent his front wing flying and scattered debris over the track, forcing the session to be stopped for five minutes.

Sauber driver Felipe Massa escaped from a scary moment when he spun coming into the chicane at the end of the high-speed tunnel section of the track. The Brazilian completed a full 360 degrees rotation and straightened the car up just in time to miss the barriers and continue his lap.

Later in the session, however, Massa was not so lucky when he lost control of his Sauber and clattered the barriers on the exit of Tabac. The light crash damaged the car's right-hand side suspension and it was craned off the track.

Enrique Bernoldi went straight on at the Casino half way through the session when the Cosworth engine in his Arrows blew up and at the same time, Ulsterman Eddie Irvine slid into the barriers at Massenet, the corner before Casino, possibly after hitting oil left by the stricken Arrows.

With 15 minutes to go, it was an all Scottish front-row, with McNish leading countryman Coulthard, while fellow Briton Button was left to walk back to the pits after hitting the barriers in his Renault at Mirabeau with less than ten minutes to go.

But low turned to high almost immediately for Renault, when Button's teammate Trulli rocketed to the top of the times with two minutes of the session left to go and stayed there until the end.

Pos  Driver        Team                   Time                    Laps
 1.  Trulli        Renault           (M)  1:18.915  153.735 km/h  43  
 2.  McNish        Toyota            (M)  1:19.361    +    0.446  47  
 3.  Coulthard     McLaren Mercedes  (M)  1:19.597    +    0.682  35  
 4.  Fisichella    Jordan Honda      (B)  1:19.680    +    0.765  24  
 5.  Salo          Toyota            (M)  1:19.815    +    0.900  36  
 6.  R.Schumacher  Williams BMW      (M)  1:19.937    +    1.022  45  
 7.  Barrichello   Ferrari           (B)  1:19.945    +    1.030  41  
 8.  Webber        Minardi Asiatech  (M)  1:20.028    +    1.113  44  
 9.  Montoya       Williams BMW      (M)  1:20.264    +    1.349  40  
10.  Button        Renault           (M)  1:20.375    +    1.460  34  
11.  M.Schumacher  Ferrari           (B)  1:20.404    +    1.489  28  
12.  Panis         BAR Honda         (B)  1:20.887    +    1.972  58  
13.  Frentzen      Arrows Cosworth   (B)  1:21.005    +    2.090  42  
14.  Villeneuve    BAR Honda         (B)  1:21.086    +    2.171  56  
15.  Heidfeld      Sauber Petronas   (B)  1:21.638    +    2.723  36  
16.  Massa         Sauber Petronas   (B)  1:21.683    +    2.768  38  
17.  Sato          Jordan Honda      (B)  1:21.868    +    2.953  39  
18.  de la Rosa    Jaguar Cosworth   (M)  1:21.876    +    2.961  18  
19.  Raikkonen     McLaren Mercedes  (M)  1:22.904    +    3.989   6  
20.  Irvine        Jaguar Cosworth   (M)  1:22.917    +    4.002  29  
21.  Bernoldi      Arrows Cosworth   (B)  1:23.150    +    4.235  31  
22.  Yoong         Minardi Asiatech  (M)  1:26.518    +    7.603  24

All Timing Unofficial

Published at 12:06:08 GMT

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