Today's Selected Quotes - Italian GP

Ferrari

Rubens Barrichello: "I found that my car was much better than it had been during the three days of testing I did here last week. All the work we did today meant we were able to move forward in terms of adapting the car to suit the characteristics of this circuit. Of course we were working towards Sunday's race, trying various set-ups and adjustment. I used just one set of tyres."

Michael Schumacher: "I am generally happy with the work we did today. I did a lot of laps and we made several fine tuning changes to the car. These resulted in some good improvements. Today's performance confirms the work we did here last week. The car is going very well, better than in the past when we came here. This time the car is a pleasure to drive. This was a good way to start the weekend. Let's hope we keep it up. The new chicanes are quite narrow, but I am happy with the changes. You might cut them, but we are all professional enough to deal with this. It will be important for everyone to be sensible at the start of the race. But, from a safety point of view, it is a good change."

Jean Todt: "Today we worked on fine tuning our cars, which overall seem to be working quite well. Today's running confirmed the conclusions we had reached in last week's test session. I think that tomorrow we will be in the running for the places on the front two rows of the grid. Of course, the dream result would be to have the same situation as today, with an all red front row. But of course, we all know the true value of Friday's times."

Jordan

Jarno Trulli: "Everything went well, We have done the job as planned, testing different things and getting positive results. The car is nicely balanced, just as good as it was in the test we had here last week. The track has improved a bit since then, which explains the faster times. Overall, I'm pretty satisfied."

Heinz Harald Frentzen: "I stayed on race fuel all day and we were fine-tuning those settings, We learned a lot during the test and those findings have paid off. So far so good but now we have to see what we can do during qualifying tomorrow."

McLaren

David Coulthard: "A productive first practice, but unfortunately early in the second session I went off at the Lesmo corner. I'm not quite sure whether I made a mistake or if there was a problem with the car but the team is analysing the data. However I had a good test here last week where we went through a lot of work so I'm not too worried."

Mika Hakkinen: "I only managed one lap in the first session because of a problem with my gearbox. We made a lot of progress today but we still have some way to go before we can really optimise our set-up. I gained more experience of the first and second chicane where the revisions have been made and all in all I'm very optimistic."

Ron Dennis: "A somewhat eventful day with Mika losing the first practice session through a precautionary inspection of the transmission. David's afternoon was cut short by a spin into the gravel â€" the cause of which we are still investigating."

Norbert Haug: "We tested for race conditions and we have found a good but not yet the optimum basis for Sunday."

Jaguar

Johnny Herbert: "We went through the usual set-up work today and we made a few changes during the break between the two sessions but unfortunately they didn't do what we expected them to do so we reverted back and the car seemed to be alright, I'm still not happy with the car under braking which is always an issue here. Overall it's not too bad and at least we have identified where we can make a jump forward tomorrow."

Eddie Irvine: "We have made some good progress with the car which is better balanced now, The balance has improved and I have a much more positive feeling about the car, that's for sure. The key is to improve the cars behaviour under braking and its ride over the kerbs. Getting it wrong can really throw the car around a lot, which is where you lose all your time. I'm not entirely sure where we have managed to find almost a second since the test but as long as it keeps coming I'll be happy. We have e couple of ideas to work on overnight and in the morning to get it spot on for qualifying."

Gary Anderson, Technical director: "If we can fix the handling through Lesmo and over the kerbs in general we'll be in the hunt. Eddie ran new tyres at the end of the second session to give us a direction but he was already running a good Friday pace. Johnny worked on a similar set-up program without fresh rubber and found some time towards the end. It's difficult to get a true picture of where we are relative to other teams but all the signs are that we are in good shape. As always, its tomorrow that counts."

Arrows

Pedro de la Rosa: "We have had a good session today, testing during the week has provided us with more information about the car's set-up, and the car was quite good and strong today as it is suited to this type of circuit. We are now concentrating on tomorrow's qualifying as this is what is important - far more important than to-day."

Jos Verstappen: "I am quite happy with the position that we finished with to-day, the car feels good although we have to improve the braking, which I think we will be able to do for tomorrow."

Tom Walkinshaw, Team Principal: "I am reasonably pleased with the performance today and our clear target for tomorrow is to get both cars in the top 10."

Mike Coughlan, Technical Director: "Testing has progressed well and the car is performing as expected, I am looking forward to Saturday's qualifying session."

Sauber

Pedro Diniz: "Last week we did good preparation for this meeting, so we were able to start well, My car felt very good, but a further change for this afternoon's running proved not to be the right direction in which to go. As the track was getting faster I would have gone quicker still if we had retained the original set-up, but I'm quite content with what we did today."

Mika Salo: "Today was mainly a matter of confirming our findings in testing here last week, The car feels fine, and I had no problems. But we'll only really see where we are tomorrow. As far as the track is concerned, the first corner is better to drive through, but for sure it's going to worse at the start of the race."

Willy Rampf, Technical director: "Our performance today is a reflection of the good work that we did on set-up here last week, particularly last Friday morning when the track dried out, We thus had a good start to our running today and generally we built well on that. Now we have a good direction in which to go for qualifying tomorrow."

Williams

Ralf Schumacher: "We have been focusing mainly on the race set up, and we are aware that there is still quite a lot of work to do. Two of our direct rivals BAR and Jordan seem to be quite strong here."

Jenson Button: "I think that the hot weather is not really helping the car and myself, but we still have two more free practice sessions to go before qualifying and I am quite sure we will get the right set-up. I drove on the old circuit three or four months ago last time, but I am not too sure about the new layout, the first chicane especially. This new tarmac means people will lock up quite easily and have to brake a bit later and it's easy to make a mistake and go straight on. Probably in the race a lot of people will be penalised, I think. I am sure we will discuss this today, in the FIA drivers' briefing."

Patrick Head, Technical Director: "As it's pretty obvious from the times, we have been doing more race homework. We think the race will be very hard on the tyres and very hard on the brakes and we've been gathering information with Ralf. Jenson had the opportunity to run with slightly less fuel at the end of the session. Tomorrow we will concentrate on our grid position."

Gerhard Berger, BMW Motorsport Director: "Quite a hard job judging lap-times on a Friday. There's nothing to worry about with our position, because we just did our routine work. Our new spec-engine proved to be strong and reliable in qualifying in Hungary as well as during the whole Spa weekend, but Monza will be a further test. Nevertheless we are confident of our reliability here. We have to score some more points to maintain our third place in the championship."

Minardi

Mark Gene: "It has been a pretty good day's practice today for we have confirmed last week's test and the car was very similar in terms of set-up if not better. I'm happy with the balance of my car and basically I had a trouble free session which allowed me to test a number of interesting settings. I feel we have got useful information to capitalise on. May be we just need to focus a bit more on the qualifying set-up because the car is very consistent albeit for one lap we still should improve a little bit so tomorrow we will concentrate on the wing level. I am confident cause it was not so bad compared to other drivers."

Gaston Mazzacane: "I am pretty confident for tomorrow's qualifying because the car's behavior was quite good. During the first practice session I had an engine problem then at the end of the second session I spun off track and was unable to exploit the set of new tyres, as a result. I am satisfied with the first interim time I set which could bode well for tomorrow's qualifying. We are testing the new hydraulic differential which is proving reliable although it still needs further test."

Benetton

Alexander Wurz: "On my first run in the second session I had a hydraulic problem and had to stop on the track. This meant I missed out on a lot of chassis work that would be useful for the next two days. But this morning the balance felt quite reasonable and much better than in the test, so I'm confident we can be competitive here."

Giancarlo Fisichella: "The car feels quite good here, the balance is OK and we just have a little understeer. In the second session, we ran with the same tyres for the whole session so its hard to judge where we stand in comparison to the other teams."

Pat Symonds, Technical Director: "Pleasingly today the balance on the cars was similar to the fore-shortened test that we did here last week. Due to losing Giancarlo's car during the test, we had a lot more work to do today and it required a well-disciplined session to get it done. I'm pleased that this discipline was applied and the majority of the work was carried out successfully. Unfortunately our problems were further compounded by the loss of Alex's car with a hydraulic problem during the second practice, but up until this point he was reasonably happy with the car. We have no major problems and look forward to a competitive day tomorrow."

BAR

Jacques Villeneuve: "It is difficult to know exactly where we are after today. We were quick in the test last week, but many people seem to be running lighter fuel loads, so we'll have a better idea tomorrow. Although the average speed is high at Monza, the cornering speeds are actually quite slow. There isn't really a challenging corner to get excited about, but the whole lap has a nice feel."

Ricardo Zonta: "I had a lot of understeer today which we spent some time trying to correct. We were running with quite a lot of fuel and did a lot of laps on old tyres, so that may have had something to do with the problem. Hopefully the car will feel better tomorrow and we can qualify well."

Takefumi Hosaka - Managing Director, Honda R&D: "Since this is Honda's 200th race, we have prepared very hard and enjoyed a very good test at Monza last week. I expected that we would have a good performance, so I am a little bit disappointed for today's result. In some sectors, Jacques was very fast today, so we have to investigate how to maximise the good performance of the engine with the chassis."

Prost

Jean Alesi: "I could not do what I wanted today. The car is still not set-up efficiently, and I lost the whole second session because of a hydraulic problem in my first outing this afternoon. I just hope things will be better tomorrow."

Nick Heidfeld: "The positive thing for today's session is that we were able to complete a lot of laps. It was important for me as last week's test was not as conclusive as we hoped for lack of enough time on the track. We improved the car today but definitely not enough, as our positions show. This circuit requires low downforce set-ups, just like Hockenheim where we struggled quite a lot as well. So we know we cannot expect to be really competitive. However, we will work hard tonight so that we can improve tomorrow."

Alain Prost: "As we do not expect to be very competitive on this kind of circuit, we have chosen to concentrate rather on a programme of preparation for the race, as we had done in testing last week here in Monza. Unfortunately, today's work was also hampered by Jean missing the whole afternoon session. Hopefully we can make up for lost time tomorrow."