Saturday March 8th, 2003

By Timothy Collings

Jarno Trulli underlined the potential of the Renault team this year and the value of taking part in Friday's early morning 'test' session when he topped the times ahead of Briton Jenson Button's BAR-Honda in the second part of Saturday morning's free practice session.

On a cool and cloudy morning following heavy overnight rain storms, and on a circuit left stewn with dirt and dust, the Italian demonstrated that he and his team can deliver the right performance with a late lap that pushed Button off the top of the time-sheets in the closing seconds.

Earlier, Briton Button had showed that his fifth-place finish in Friday's opening new-look qualifying session was no fluke with a bold display of aggressive driving in the promising BAR-Honda.

He wound up with a second best time of 1:27.415 behind Trulli's top time of 1:26.928, this pair finishing ahead of Spaniard Fernando Alonso in the second Renault, five-times World Champion German Michael Schumacher and his Ferrari teammate Brazilian Rubens Barrichello, and sixth-placed Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya in his Williams-BMW.

It was an intriguing and incident-filled session, with Michael Schumacher, who had three off-circuit excursions during the morning, clearly struggling to come to terms with the conditions. He and Finn Kimi Raikkonen both endured heavy accidents in the first part of the session, their cars both suffering damage to the front left wheels. Schumacher's car lost its front wing.

The temperature was only 17 degrees Celsius, however, compared to 25 degrees during Friday's session and on a dirtier surface with most teams experimenting with fuel loads and settings in advance of Saturday's 'shootout' one lap qualifying session it was difficult to draw any real conclusions.

Pos  Driver        Team                   Time                    Laps
 1.  Trulli        Renault           (M)  1:26.928  219.616 km/h  22  
 2.  Button        BAR Honda         (B)  1:27.415    +    0.487  29  
 3.  Alonso        Renault           (M)  1:27.424    +    0.496  28  
 4.  M.Schumacher  Ferrari           (B)  1:27.517    +    0.589  21  
 5.  Barrichello   Ferrari           (B)  1:27.558    +    0.630  27  
 6.  Montoya       Williams BMW      (M)  1:27.700    +    0.772  30  
 7.  R.Schumacher  Williams BMW      (M)  1:27.814    +    0.886  29  
 8.  Heidfeld      Sauber Petronas   (B)  1:28.049    +    1.121  17  
 9.  Coulthard     McLaren Mercedes  (M)  1:28.090    +    1.162  18  
10.  da Matta      Toyota            (M)  1:28.177    +    1.249  23  
11.  Panis         Toyota            (M)  1:28.360    +    1.432  28  
12.  Webber        Jaguar Cosworth   (M)  1:28.421    +    1.493  26  
13.  Villeneuve    BAR Honda         (B)  1:28.509    +    1.581  16  
14.  Raikkonen     McLaren Mercedes  (M)  1:28.564    +    1.636  10  
15.  Frentzen      Sauber Petronas   (B)  1:28.590    +    1.662  28  
16.  Fisichella    Jordan Ford       (B)  1:28.619    +    1.691  27  
17.  Firman        Jordan Ford       (B)  1:29.814    +    2.886  25  
18.  Pizzonia      Jaguar Cosworth   (M)  1:30.551    +    3.623  10  
19.  Wilson        Minardi Cosworth  (B)  1:30.857    +    3.929  20  
20.  Verstappen    Minardi Cosworth  (B)  1:31.066    +    4.138  18  

All Timing Unofficial

Published at 00:07:57 GMT

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