McNish happy with third

"Allan learns the circuit very quickly!" said team manager Ange Pasquali. "He has never been here before in any kind of car and did a very good job. He went through the first session prioritising things in his head and then really got the job done. It was a very constructive session for him and he has a better idea about what he has to do for the rest of the weekend. We have a good overall picture considering that we have never been here before."

McNish's time was set on low fuel with fresh tyres but team mate Mika Salo's low fuel run was spoiled when Michael Schumacher spun the Ferrari in front of him and then he had more traffic problems on his second lap.

But, as chief designer Gustav Brunner said: "Friday is only for the show. Tomorrow is when it matters."

McNish knows he'll be hard-pressed to achieve the same level of competitiveness tomorrow, but thinks the Toyota is well suited to the track. "We got the car set-up much more quickly and I was very satisfied with my performance then, towards the end of the session, I was pushing a little bit too hard and had a quick trip across the grass. This looks good but not everyone ran new tyres and it will still be hard to qualify top 10 tomorrow."

Salo, 15th, was a second slower than his team-mate but stopped early in the first session to change gear ratios and also experienced clutch problems, which reappeared in the later session.