McNish Benefits from Past Experience to Shine in Austria

Scot Allan McNish was pleased with his performance in Friday's practice for the Austrian Grand Prix, where the Toyota driver benefitted from this past experience of the A1-Ring circuit to post an impressive fifth quickest time.

The Japanese outfit, making their Formula One debut this season, had already completed a simulated Grand Prix at the Austrian circuit last year, and their past knowledge paid off on Friday, with McNish finishing slightly over half a second behind the quickest time.

"I am quite happy with the handling of the car today," admitted McNish. "The A1-Ring is a circuit I like and one I know well. We tested here last year with our TF101 test car and that has proved to be an advantage.

"We expected to do reasonably here, but the field is very tight and every thousandth of a second counts."

McNish's teammate Mika Salo was unable to match the Scot's pace today, and despite only setting the 19th fastest time, the Finn was confident ahead of qualifying.

"We managed to complete the programme we had today with some long runs," said Salo. "I am content with the car set-up, but we do have some small handling problems at high speed that we have to fix. But overall I am quite confident for qualifying tomorrow."