Free practice 4: Ralf and DC close in
Perm one from three for pole position for tomorrow's French Grand Prix. The second and final session of today's (Saturday's) free practice in Magny-Cours didn't change the name at the top of the timesheets, but it did at least bring Ralf Schumacher and David Coulthard into the frame as challengers to Michael Schumacher and Ferrari.
Schumacher Sr didn't better the time he'd set in the first of the day's 45-minute sessions, but a 1m13.953s lap for Ralf's Williams-BMW brought him within 0.224s of his big brother, while Coulthard's 1m13.972s best put his McLaren just 0.243s from the benchmark.
Behind that trio, McLaren's Mika Hakkinen came out to play after missing the first session and wound up fourth, 0.566s back from Michael, but best of the eight cars within the 1m14s zone.
Jarno Trulli raised Jordan hopes with fifth overall and was by far the best of the Honda-powered quartet. After holding the sixth to ninth slots in the first session, the rest of the Japanese-powered cars dropped outside of the top 10, with Heinz-Harald Frentzen best of them in 11th.
The biggest climbers were the Saubers of Nick Heidfeld and Kimi Raikkonen, eighth and 10th respectively, plus Jaguar's Eddie Irvine, who rose from 16th to ninth.
Ahead of them, a distinctly low-key Rubens Barrichello and Juan Pablo Montoya put their Ferrari and Williams into the sixth and seventh slots.
Benetton-Renault news? Giancarlo Fisichella 18th, with Jenson Button one place lower in 19th. Not the great leap forward just yet.
For combined Saturday free practice times, click here.
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