Arrows pleased with top 10 showing

Arrows technical director Mike Coughlan was full of praise for his team after it enjoyed its most competitive showing of the season so far in San Marino today (Friday).

Heinz-Harald Frentzen took full advantage of Bridgestone's wet weather superiority to end the day in an encouraging sixth place, and boost the team's hopes of a top 10 starting position if qualifying is run in wet conditions as expected.

"Obviously we're pleased that Heinz-Harald was quick today," said Coughlan. "Enrique struggled a bit but was a lot better during the second session. The afternoon session was strange as almost nobody went quicker and the circuit was drier than it was this morning. With the weather conditions we had, we were able to learn a lot about the intermediate tyres. Last, but by no means least, I'd like to say thank you to the team for working so late last night in order to give us predominantly trouble-free running today."

Enrique Bernoldi was 17th in the first session but slipped back to 18th in the afternoon. However, he improved his time by almost 1.5s.