Today's Selected Quotes - Japanese GP

Ferrari

Michael Schumacher: "We have had a good day, developing the car very nicely throughout the session. Certainly the work we did at Mugello last week seems to have paid off. The new tyres are as good as we expected, very fast and consistent, which I am pleased about. We made some positive changes. The circuit seems to suit me and the car reasonably well, and we are particularly strong in the first and third sectors. So I am optimistic at the start of what will be a long weekend. Now we have to wait and see how things develop. Out on the track, I did not feel the tremor. The most important point for doing a good lap here is to get the right rythm, because with so many corners following in quick succession, if you get one wrong, the following one will also be wrong. The gap behind me is very big, but I do not expect it to be the same tomorrow. They will improve, but I hope we will too."

Rubens Barrichello: "In the early part of the session, my set-up was not perfect as the car felt light at the back end. When I went off the track at the end of the first hour, I did not damage the car, but the mechanics had a lot of work to do to clean it up and remove all the debris, so I was not able to run in quite the way I would have liked during the second half of the session. Before tomorrow's qualifying we will have to continue working on finding the right balance on the car."

Jean Todt: "After the novelty of Indianapolis, we are now back on a track we know and therefore this Friday has been the same as any other we have encountered during the season. Today's work centred mainly on finding the best set-up. For the first time this year we only have one type of tyre for dry conditions and so we have not had to work on making a choice. We know we still have room for improvement in terms of our performance. Tomorrow, as usual, qualifying will probably come down to a fight between ourselves and our closest rivals. This is a very tough track, both in terms of driving it well and for the car. Tomorrow morning's session will be devoted to working on preparations for qualifying."

McLaren

Mika Hakkinen: "I'm confident with the work we have done today and the balance we have achieved is good. The kerbs at the last chicane have been modified and I'm still trying to find the right line and the optimum acceleration to get this part absolutely perfect. We are heading in the right direction and I'm feeling very positive."

David Coulthard: "It's always tough to find the ideal balance due the nature of the Suzuka track. It's important to stabilise the rear of the car at the entry and exits of corners and that is what we have been trying to optimise during today's sessions. There are a number of medium speed corners where you don't really brake hard before the entry, so by the time I was feeling confident with where to position the car, my tyres had lost their edge."

Ron Dennis: "As you would expect everybody is focusing on achieving the result we need this weekend and the team made good progress towards this goal during today's practice sessions."

Norbert Haug: "The team worked on the race set-up and the impression is that we are on the way to achieving our goals. We expect a close fight for pole position tomorrow."

Williams

Jenson Button: "The most difficult thing for me was learning the circuit. I think it's going to take me another day. I think I am still quite a bit off where I should be really. The track is good, it's just very difficult to get the "S" sorted out, the long, sweeping curves. It's very, very difficult to know which way to take them. I know that some drivers push very hard in the first bit and then lose on the second bit or whatever, and I think I am losing on both! Anyway, we'll see tomorrow."

Ralf Schumacher: "We didn't experience any major problems, apart from a damper which caused me some troubles. We just did some race work and everything went as it should. I've always liked this circuit and it's nice to come back to the Japanese crowd, which still remembers me from four years ago. I think we should be in good shape for tomorrow's qualifying."

Patrick Head: "We had a very normal Friday, just doing our homework for race day. Ralf had what appeared to be a problem with a damper on his car, which confused us a little on set-up. Anyway we collected a lot of data, which we are going to look at now and sort ourselves out for qualifying tomorrow."

Dr Mario Theissen, BMW Motorsport Director: "After the off-switch activated itself on Jenson's car in Indianapolis, just as he was overtaking on the famous bricks, we sorted out this problem with a new software solution. By the way, it seemed to work during the light earthquake! Apart from that, nothing unusual happened regarding the engine."

Jordan

Jarno Trulli: "It's been a positive day for me. We concentrated on the race set-up rather than going for a fast time, unlike some of the drivers ahead of us who put on a fresh set of tyres towards the end. So, I'm pretty happy. The balance of the car was good and the car felt competitive straight away - which is always a good sign! I would expect us to qualify fifth and sixth."

Heinz Harald Frentzen: "It was the usual Friday programme, working on the set-up. The conditions were good today and there seemed to be plenty of grip. So far, so good with the race set-up but we will need to find further improvements for qualifying tomorrow."

Arrows

Pedro de la Rosa: "It was a good session. The first session involved just changing set-ups on the car to improve it for the second session and actually we did improve the car quite a lot. If I couldn't improve anymore it was because of the earth tremor!!!! Seriously though, I couldn't feel it at all, but the car felt good, although we still have to find more front end grip as that costs us a lot of time but the car seems good through the 'S' corners and the medium and high speed corners."

Jos Verstappen: "The car wasn't running too badly on old tyres but even with new tyres on I still didn't get the gains that I should have had. We have too much understeer and especially in the first sector I lost quite a lot of time so we have some work to do for tomorrow I think."

Tom Walkinshaw, Team Principal: "Both cars and set-ups went to plan. I think we have established a reasonably good race set up but still have to work hard for qualifying."

BAR

Jacques Villeneuve: "I'm not sure how representative the times are as not many people ran with new tyres today. The new engine goes in the car for tomorrow, but we still need to improve the set-up to make up more time. I'm not sure how we are going to go in qualifying - anything is possible but I hope we can pull something out of the bag. I really like this track but it has never gone very well for me in the race. I hope that will change this year."

Ricardo Zonta: "I think we made some good progress today. We improved the car during the two sessions and when we put new tyres on we found nearly two seconds. The track is pretty good and not too slippery. I think we can make some improvements all round and the new engine will help us find some more speed for tomorrow."

Takefumi Hosaka, Managing Director, Honda R&D: "Today we were concentrating on finding the best setting for this circuit, so overall the result was pretty good. From tomorrow we will run with the Suzuka specification engine, so we hope to see a good result from the rest of the weekend."

Jaguar

Eddie Irvine: "My first flying lap was bloody good," he smiled. "If you look at it there was only me and Michael (Schumacher) who did a first lap that quick! It wasn't a bad day; whenever there's grip in the circuit, and softer tyres, it always helps us. The handling is not bad. We know what we need to do, so it will be alright. I think we can be in the top 10. The car feels reasonably good here. We had an aerodynamic problem initially, and we changed a part on the rear, and it made so much difference, it's incredible. It's the smallest thing you've ever seen. To outqualify the Jordans is going to be tough, and as for Williams maybe, maybe not. If we can start seventh, eighth or ninth, we might get a chance of a point, but normally out car is a bit harder on tyres. We don't want rain. As I said on low grip surfaces the car is not good. Once we run the softer tyres and have mechanical grip, we're okay."

Johnny Herbert: "I didn't have a very nice day today as the balance of the car was poor and it was developing a lot of rear-end instability, which we never quite got on top of. We'll have a good look at the data tonight to try to improve it. It looks like a number of people ran new tyres at the end so from that point of view we should be aiming at the top 10 tomorrow."

Sauber

Pedro Diniz: "It's important to have a well balanced car here, and by the afternoon session we had improved the car in that respect. It felt good and was handling well. All we lacked was a bit of traction, especially coming out of the last chicane. I'm told there was an earth tremor, but it happened while I was on my quick lap. Believe me, in the environment of an F1 car there is no way you are going to feel something like that!"

Mika Salo: "I had a lot of understeer all day, and really we have just been chasing that, trying to get a better balance on the car."

Peter Sauber, Team Principal: "We have done the usual Friday work today, focusing our effort on race preparation. Nevertheless, I think we have the potential to qualify well tomorrow."

Prost

Nick Heidfeld: "I feel satisfied with today's practice session, especially as it is the first time I have driven here on the Suzuka circuit. I really enjoy this track and it is just as nice as expected from what the other F1 drivers have said. It is difficult and challenging, but I have been able to complete a lot of laps which was the best thing I could have done to become familiar with all the different types of corners. We still have to improve the car on some points, but overall we have managed to find good a set-up in the end and I am really looking forward to tomorrow."

Jean Alesi: "We began well enough this morning and the car behaved pretty well from the start . But we have not truly succeeded in finding good set-ups and it was increasingly difficult to work on the car at the end of the second session. So, we expect to change a certain number of things here tomorrow."

Alain Prost: "The two drivers have been able to try a great number of different set-ups today to adapt the car to this particularly difficult circuit. We know this track well, where we performed competitively last year, and I think that we have the possibility to improve today's performances considerably for qualifying and the race."

Benetton

Giancarlo Fisichella: "This was a good and satisfying day. We did lots of runs and made good progress with the car and achieved a good balance. Even though our times do not seem very high we know we are in a strong position for the weekend. It's a pity Alex got hardly any running in, but hopefully we did enough work on my car to help both of us tomorrow."

Alexander Wurz: "On my first run this morning I had a problem with the oil system on the car and so I came in before we did any irreparable damage. We changed the engine then as I went out for my first run in the second session the same thing happened again. It seems the circuit is not good for our engines, but hopefully we identified the problem today so we can be competitive for the rest of the weekend."

Pat Symonds, Technical Director: "Although our positions on the timesheet are relatively low, this was a conventional Friday for Giancarlo working on race set-up which is so important for this circuit. We remained on a high level of fuel and only one set of tyres and are satisfied with what we learned. Alex had an unfortunate day due to an oil system problem which meant he only did two flying laps all day. He can, I hope, adopt some of the lessons learnt from Giancarlo's car to put him in a better position for tomorrow. He has however lost valuable track time on this circuit that is so challenging for drivers."

Minardi

Marc Gene: "This morning I lost almost half an hour owing to a minor engine concern but, apart from that, today I had a trouble free session. I am not yet satisfied with my car set up, however although having set the same lap time as last year's qualifying, still we are too far from the other Teams. We, therefore, must concentrate deeply on tomorrow's settings and understand the reasons of this gap. That said, I do not feel too much concerned. For sure, there is a lot of work still to be done but I am confident that we will find the right set up that will let us improve."

Gaston Mazzacane: "Unfortunately today's turned out to be a troubled session for I did not manage to work as I would have wanted in preparation for tomorrow's qualifying. This morning I could complete a very short number of laps, before being forced to stop by the track due to an electrical problem affecting the engine control unit (ECU). In the afternoon I waited the car to be fixed and then I made it back onto the track. I was just doing my first lap when I was forced to stop due to the same problem the car suffered in the morning. I, therefore, must exploit tomorrow's session as much as I can, but I feel confident despite today's concerns."