Today's Selected Quotes - Belgian GP

McLaren

David Coulthard: "We went through our planned programme and achieved a good balance. In the second session one of my tyres received a small cut, which was, why I didn't do a lot of flat out laps. We did a few practice starts and I believe we are in good shape for the weekend."

Mika Hakkinen: "I'm very happy with the work we have done, but it's still early days. We tried a number of different set-ups to find the right balance and continuously improved the car. Getting the optimum out of the car is always a challenge at Spa because you have to make some compromises with the set-up."

Ron Dennis: "A good productive day. David's quickest time was set when the team was still in the process of optimising the car, and it therefore bodes well for tomorrow. Mika didn't do many timed laps but still managed a respectable time. Both conserved their tyres well. David and his engineers' decision not to move to a second set of tyres following him picking up a puncture was a disciplined approach."

Norbert Haug: "David was fastest in the morning and Mika in the afternoon. Both drivers and their teams did a good job in finding the right set-up for the race, but I would not read too much into the time gap between us and the competition. I'm expecting a close fight for pole tomorrow and in Sunday's race as well."

Jaguar

Johnny Herbert: "We started out this morning working on a particular set-up which was making the car a little better but not improving it significantly, we changed strategy for this afternoon's session which was a real turning point. We put on a new set of tyres at the end of the session in order to check the balance for tomorrow and it felt really good. The job now is to keep that balance. It's definitely the best it's been for a while so I want to keep hold of it!"

Eddie Irvine: "It's difficult to say where we really stand relative to our close rivals because although I ran through a series of set-up changes, I don't have a clear indication as tyre degradation is clouding the picture, the car felt very good in the high speed corners, but there's still some time to be found in the slow stuff. Johnny made a significant move up the time sheets at the end, which we can learn from that. I think we made good progress today. Seventeenth position may not be pretty reading, but we've got a lot more to come and I think we should be able to mount a solid challenge in qualifying"

Gary Anderson, Technical director: "We ran through our usual Friday programme and emerged with encouraging results, Johnny has given us an indication of the balance of the car on new tyres which will be important for tomorrow. He provided some very constructive input and made a big step forward towards the end of the second session with a set-up change that we will put to good effect in qualifying. Eddie ran through a programme this morning but was confused a little on direction because of tyre wear. He nonetheless feels he has identified the area where he needs to improve the car in race trim. Overall, we're pleased with our efforts today."

BAR

Jacques Villeneuve: "This is a beautiful track. I love driving here and so far it seems to be going quite well for me. The car was good from the first run today; we made some improvements and have done some good work. But it is still only Friday and qualifying is a long way off, but we seem to be in good shape.

I haven't taken Eau Rouge flat yet; I'm saving that for tomorrow. It is a corner you just can't explain to someone who has never driven it. It is actually a bit easier this year. They have taken the wall away from the inside, so visually it is a little less daunting."

Ricardo Zonta: "I had a lot of oversteer this morning which I couldn't understand. We kept the set-up from the Mugello test but we had to go back and change some things. Then I made a big gain from some changes this afternoon but we still need to find more time. I am losing half a second to Jacques through Eau Rouge, so I need to get my confidence back through this corner after last year's accident."

Takefumi Hosaka - Managing Director, Honda R&D: "We are fairly pleased so far, but you cannot read too much into the times on Friday. It is good to come back after the disappointments of Hungary and we have analysed the data from the Mugello test to get the best settings for this track. Ricardo struggled with some oversteer, so there is work to do there, but Jacques likes it here and we are in a good position so far."

Ferrari

Michael Schumacher: "We had a reasonable day's practice. There is not much to say about it as it was uneventful. The car is not too bad. We need to find a good balance for the medium speed corners and the chicane. We will have to concentrate on this a bit. Otherwise the car feels good, especially in the first and third sectors. We must improve in the middle section. It is no harder to find the right set up here than anywhere else."

Rubens Barrichello: "I am not very happy with the balance we achieved on my car today. Now, I will have to look at the data carefully with my engineers, because we have work to do to improve the performance. However, I am confident we can find a solution. As usual on Friday we worked with the car in race trim. I used two sets of tyres."

Jean Todt: "This morning we went out on the track only in the last fifteen minutes of the first half of the session as the track was not at it's best, given this is a semi-permanent circuit. We quickly made changes to the set up of the cars, running in race trim. In the second hour, we continued searching for the right balance. However, we did not manage to get the most out of the car. Now our engineers will analyse the data to find the right settings. I am confident that they will succeed and tomorrow we should be on the pace to fight for the top positions on the grid."

Benetton

Alexander Wurz: "We made a big step forward with the balance in these two sessions, we have corrected a lot of understeer on my car and the rear is more stable. So we feel quite confident for tomorrow although we still have to study the data for tyre choice which will be quite tricky."

Giancarlo Fisichella: "We started the day with quite a bit of understeer but we made a good improvement during the sessions. The balance is good in the fast corners but we need to work on improving it in the slow ones."

Pat Symonds, Technical Director: "We started the session with not a very good balance on either car but we made some steady progress and eliminated a lot of understeer. The tyres are proving hard to understand particularly as we had to change a whole set on Giancarlo's car after a cut was found in one of them."

Arrows

Pedro de la Rosa: "Well we went out in the first session and we had a hydraulics problem so I could only really do one run before the car stopped on the circuit, and there was a lot of work to do for the second session so we only got half an hour out on the track which is not enough for this circuit. Nevertheless, we made a lot of changes to the car to find a good balance. The car was quite good with old tyres and high fuel so we'll just have to wait and see how the car reacts with new tyres tomorrow. At the moment we have a little bit too much understeer on the slow corners which is slowing us down, but overall I'm reasonably happy. Spa is similar to Monaco in a way in that you just need as many practice laps as possible and at the end of the session I managed some good laps. If you miss both sessions of the first day you have a lot of work to do to catch up which is where I am, but the car is good on high speed corners and we just have to find a bit more balance on the slower parts".

Jos Verstappen: "I expected the car to be quicker to start off with but we had to change quite a lot on the car to get rid of the understeer. Also, I don't think my first tyre choice was the right one, so we changed the tyres and the car felt a lot better, but there were a few electrical problems with the car as well so we lost about half an hour in the second session. Obviously we lost some time too by setting up the car so we have a lot of work to do overnight to make the car competitive for tomorrow and to do well in qualifying".

Jordan

Jarno Trulli: "I had no problems, the car was competitive straightaway this morning and the times were quick. So, we worked on improving the balance even further while running with a race fuel load. Our running was limited eventually by the tyres losing their edge and we did not want to run a second set at this stage. Generally, a positive day for us. I'm pretty happy."

Heinz Harald Frentzen: "The mechanics did a very good job because I didn't lose a lot of time due to the various problems, from the running I was able to do, the balance of the car seemed okay and we are analysing the data to see where we can improve for tomorrow's practice and qualifying."

Minardi

Marc Gene: "I had not achieved a position like today's for a long time in the friday session, therefore I am happy with the job we have done, based as always on our usual free practice program. It is clear that tomorrow things will change, since the others will have the qualifying engines at their disposal. However the car is handling well and I am satisfied with the tyres too. What's more I enjoy so much driving on the very fast circuits and I will try to exploit not only my car's potential but also mine, as much as I can. There is still a matter of uncertainty with regard to the fact that we do not know which is the margin of improvement left to our opponents, but I guess we can play a good game too."

Gaston Mazzacane: "Considering that I was driving a car at Spa for the very first time, I would say it was not to bad, today I ran trouble free sessions, working on the set-ups. My car is feeling pretty good and it is well balanced, but unfortunately I lost time in the straights, so tomorrow I must continue working in this direction to try and find a good compromise in terms of aerodynamics."

Williams

Ralf Schumacher: "Everything ran to schedule today, we tried what we had planned, with regards to the engine we had no problem at all but we have some work to do on the car set-up as we are struggling a bit in the slow parts of the track."

Jenson Button: "It's simply amazing how different it is to run in an F1 car on this track, I have raced here before in an F3 car, which is much slower of course. The right word for it is "outrageous". With regards to today's job we worked on race set-up and we are quite happy with it, even if you cannot tell too much on Friday."

Patrick Head, Technical Director: "We have spent this first day learning about the tyres and the way they behave when they have done more laps. We have adjusted the car to suit the tyres, this information is useful for the race but tonight we have to think about completely different set-ups for getting the best out of the tyres and the car in qualifying tomorrow. It's quite difficult to overtake here, like most circuits these days, and a good grid position is very important."

Sauber

Pedro Diniz: "It's been a difficult day, trying to find a good balance. I was struggling quite a lot with oversteer for most of the time, but when we put on a new set of tyres it changed the car completely, it felt better, but I had understeer instead. We just didn't get the handling tuned in."

Mika Salo: "I had a big balance problem in both sessions, and new tyres just didn't seem to make any difference on my car. I had everything I didn't want, oversteer, understeer and it was all very difficult, tonight we need to have a big rethink about the set-up, and start again from zero tomorrow."

Willy Rampf, Technical director: "Both cars had the same problem today, they were quite nervous at high speed. On the positive side we were able to do a lot of mileage on a single set of tyres, but we need to go through the data very carefully now to identify the best way of optimising our new aerodynamic package. The trouble with Spa is that it has some specific areas, such as Eau Rouge or Blanchimont, that it is just impossible to simulate in testing"

Prost

Jean Alesi: "There's not a lot to say. I lost the whole of this morning's session because of a fuel pump problem, the times that we've set shows that the car isn't competitive at the moment and we have a lot of work ahead of us to improve it. That's what we have to do tomorrow morning."

Nick Heidfeld: "Although I don't like admitting it, the car is very difficult to drive here and up until now we have not found the right balance, the positions and lap times show how much we are struggling at the moment. We will put a lot of work into it this afternoon and hopefully we will improve tomorrow."

Alain Prost: "Obviously occupying the last two positions on the time sheet isn't the greatest result, but we decided to use the same set of tyres on both cars and run with high fuel loads, so basically we were preparing for the race, because our number one aim on Sunday is to finish the race and score our first points. Today may not have been that rewarding but we want to be professional and concentrate on our number one priority."