Coulthard fastest in 1st Saturday practice

The Scot narrowly beat his McLaren team mate, Mika Hakkinen. Coulthard's weekend has turned around considerably since yesterday, when his McLaren was so wayward the team made a precautionary change of the rear wing.

Today, however, he seems to have beaten the problems that afflicted yesterday, to set the fastest time of the weekend so far.

Ferrari's Michael Schumacher was the early pace-setter, beating Mika Hakkinen's previous best time of the weekend easily, the German recording a lap of 1m15.291. However, the German's session was severely hampered when his Ferrari appeared to cut out in the pit lane, requiring the Ferrari mechanics to push him back to the pits.

Jenson Button appears to have got to grips with the Interlagos track, finishing the 45 minute session two places above his team mate Ralf Schumacher. The Briton recorded his fastest time of the weekend so far with a lap of 1m16.761, which placed him 12th.

The Ferraris ended the session 3rd and 4th, with Schumacher ahead by 0.3 seconds. In fifth was Jordan's Heinz Harald Frentzen, who just pipped the Benetton of Giancarlo Fisichella, signalling that the team Renault have just bought are in for a better weekend than Friday suggested. Fisichella could only manage 10th yesterday.