Saturday First Free Practice - Japanese GP

Luckless Japanese Takuma Sato's hopes of impressing his army of home fans went up in smoke on Saturday morning as Ferrari resumed normal service in advance of Sunday's Japanese Grand Prix.

The diminuitive Sato, whose presence at Suzuka with the Jordan-Honda team helped draw a crowd of 55,000 on Friday, had clocked the 12th best time before his engine appeared to expire in a cloud of smoke.

His yellow car was promptly surrounded by fire marshals with extinguishers as flames poured out of the rear of the vehicle and he escaped unscathed.

The incident, in the closing seconds of a routine Saturday morning practice session, was the most spectacular distraction as Michael Schumacher, sixth on Friday, regained his usual ascendancy with the fastest lap of the 45-minutes run and the quickest lap of the weekend to date.

His time of 1:32.978 lifted him six-tenths of a second clear of his nearest rival, his own teammate Rubens Barrichello, as the two scarlet men regained control of the pace and the contest.

Schumacher's younger brother Ralf was third quickest in his Williams BMW ahead of David Coulthard and his McLaren-Mercedes-Benz teammate Kimi Raikkonen. Juan Pablo Montoya, who has said he plans to marry his long-time girlfriend Connie when the season is over, was sixth.

Jarno Trulli was seventh for Renault and Eddie Irvine eighth for Jaguar as the sun rose on a warm and dry Saturday in southern Japan with long queues around the famous old Honda-owned fairground circuit suggesting another attendance to buck the modern trend of falling interest.

Pos Driver Team Time Laps 1. M.Schumacher Ferrari (B) 1:32.978 225.382 km/h 7 2. Barrichello Ferrari (B) 1:33.688 + 0.710 7 3. R.Schumacher Williams BMW (M) 1:34.142 + 1.164 8 4. Coulthard McLaren Mercedes (M) 1:34.540 + 1.562 9 5. Raikkonen McLaren Mercedes (M) 1:34.552 + 1.574 8 6. Montoya Williams BMW (M) 1:34.751 + 1.773 8 7. Trulli Renault (M) 1:35.330 + 2.352 8 8. Irvine Jaguar Cosworth (M) 1:35.533 + 2.555 7 9. Fisichella Jordan Honda (B) 1:35.541 + 2.563 8 10. Massa Sauber Petronas (B) 1:35.587 + 2.609 9 11. Heidfeld Sauber Petronas (B) 1:35.999 + 3.021 8 12. Sato Jordan Honda (B) 1:36.199 + 3.221 12 13. Button Renault (M) 1:36.224 + 3.246 7 14. Salo Toyota (M) 1:36.265 + 3.287 7 15. de la Rosa Jaguar Cosworth (M) 1:36.342 + 3.364 7 16. Panis BAR Honda (B) 1:36.792 + 3.814 11 17. Villeneuve BAR Honda (B) 1:36.830 + 3.852 12 18. McNish Toyota (M) 1:37.306 + 4.328 4 19. Webber Minardi Asiatech (M) 1:37.673 + 4.695 10 20. Yoong Minardi Asiatech (M) 1:39.254 + 6.276 11 All Timing Unofficial