Saturday September 28th, 2002

By Will Gray

World Champion Michael Schumacher finished faster than last year's pole position time at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Saturday as he topped the times in the morning's opening practice session for the United States Grand Prix.

Schumacher, who was fastest in both Friday practice sessions, finished almost half a second ahead of his Brazilian Ferrari teammate Rubens Barrichello as the Italian team proved once again that they are in a class of their own.

Barrichello failed to get any running in Friday's practice after crashing into the wall at turn 13 in the opening session but he was soon ahead of his other rivals. Briton David Coulthard was closest in the McLaren-Mercedes, finishing third fastest in the 45-minute session at the fog-bound circuit. But he was 0.920 seconds slower than Schumacher's fastest lap of 1:11.262.

Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya, of Williams-BMW, was fourth fastest, but he was the only other driver to get within a second of Ferrari's dominant World Champion, finishing just 0.015 seconds behind third-placed Coulthard.

Finn Kimi Raikkonen was fifth in the second McLaren-Mercedes with German Ralf Schumacher sixth in the second Williams-BMW as the two Ferrari-chasing teams proved to be on a similar level.

Jordan's Giancarlo Fisichella, of Italy, was seventh, one place ahead of Jaguar's Ulsterman Eddie Irvine, whose astonishing form in the Friday sessions seemed to have disappeared. Italian Jarno Trulli was ninth for Renault, with Finn Mika Salo in tenth for Toyota.

Fisichella's Japanese teammate Takuma Sato managed just one minute of the session before he was forced to pull off the track with smoke pluming from his car and the rear of the Jordan erupted in flames as he climbed out and began his trek back to the pits.

Pos  Driver        Team                   Time                    Laps
 1.  M.Schumacher  Ferrari           (B)  1:11.262  211.771 km/h   7  
 2.  Barrichello   Ferrari           (B)  1:11.743    +    0.481  11  
 3.  Coulthard     McLaren Mercedes  (M)  1:12.182    +    0.920  11  
 4.  Montoya       Williams BMW      (M)  1:12.197    +    0.935  11  
 5.  Raikkonen     McLaren Mercedes  (M)  1:12.364    +    1.102  10  
 6.  R.Schumacher  Williams BMW      (M)  1:12.382    +    1.120  11  
 7.  Fisichella    Jordan Honda      (B)  1:12.587    +    1.325  12  
 8.  Irvine        Jaguar Cosworth   (M)  1:12.640    +    1.378  11  
 9.  Trulli        Renault           (M)  1:12.756    +    1.494  14  
10.  Salo          Toyota            (M)  1:12.914    +    1.652   9  
11.  Frentzen      Sauber Petronas   (B)  1:12.965    +    1.703   9  
12.  Button        Renault           (M)  1:13.021    +    1.759  14  
13.  Heidfeld      Sauber Petronas   (B)  1:13.253    +    1.991  12  
14.  de la Rosa    Jaguar Cosworth   (M)  1:13.315    +    2.053  13  
15.  Panis         BAR Honda         (B)  1:13.327    +    2.065  15  
16.  Villeneuve    BAR Honda         (B)  1:13.502    +    2.240   8  
17.  Webber        Minardi Asiatech  (M)  1:13.547    +    2.285  18  
18.  McNish        Toyota            (M)  1:13.612    +    2.350  15  
19.  Yoong         Minardi Asiatech  (M)  1:14.437    +    3.175  19  

All Timing Unofficial

Published at 14:47:34 GMT

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