Raikkonen Encouraged by Quick Start

Finland's Kimi Raikkonen was encouraged by his start to the Japanese Grand Prix after posting the third quickest time at the rain-hit Suzuka circuit.

"Obviously very tricky and constantly changing conditions today," said the McLaren driver, who completed only 10 laps during the day. "The circuit had lots of water on it, which made it very difficult to do any real set-up work.

"Nevertheless it is a start and at least it's encouraging that I'm the fastest Michelin runner. Now we wait to see how the weather will develop tomorrow and how the predicted typhoon will affect the rest of the weekend's running."

Raikkonen's teammate David Coulthard, meanwhile, finished as fifth quickest in the afternoon session after failing to set a time in the first hour.

"We worked on set-up for wet weather today as there is a good chance that the rainy conditions will remain tomorrow," said Coulthard. "I had a late start to the first practice session as the team decided to change my clutch as a precaution since some data showed that it might have developed a problem.

"We didn't want to take that risk in the rain. However it didn't really affect my programme as we gathered enough data in the second session."