UFO Info Week-End

So Jarno Trulli was quite happy to nip past the Ferraris of Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello

So Jarno Trulli was quite happy to nip past the Ferraris of Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello to set the pace here yesterday, even though his Jordan-Honda team were the first to dispel the possibility of him repeating the feat when it really matters in qualifying today. “I had a good day today, and it feels good to be fastest,” the Italian said, but even more important to him than the dubious kudos of being quickest was the first trouble-free practice session he has enjoyed in months.
The Jordan-Honda is a step forward from last year’s troublesome car, and Trulli admits that it boosts his confidence every time he steps into it. “I’m also satisfied because we don’t appear to be too far from McLaren and Ferrari, which is good progress,” he said. “It’s good news to see that our car is reacting much better on this track this year, as last year we weren’t so competitive here. It seems we have taken the right direction in the development of the car’s performance.”Jordan-Honda believe that the EJ11 is a big improvement over its predecessor, but their managing director, Trevor Foster, said: “We really need to reserve judgement until the first three races are over and done.

They are three very different circuits that place different demands on the car. If it proves to be good at all three, then I think we can genuinely say that it is a significant step forward.”Ferrari and McLaren watched Jordan’s display with the equanimity of experience, the two red cars poised within a tenth of a second of the yellow interloper after dominating all but the final moments of practice. This time there was no dramatic rollover for Schumacher, as there had been on the first day in Melbourne a fortnight ago, and it was business as usual. “The car coped well with the high temperatures,” the world champion reported, “and I felt cooler in it than out of it Nevertheless, I am sweating, which is unusual for me. It would be nice to take the air-conditioning system out of the office and put it in the car.” The ambient temperature reached 39 degrees, with a track temperature of 48.With the promise of similar weather for the remainder of the weekend the Malaysian race will undoubtedly place a high premium on driver fitness.

So much so that David Coulthard is reluctant to disclose too much detail on his recent training regime for fear of giving too much away to the opposition.”After Melbourne I decided to follow the sun and went to Surfers’ Paradise where, of course, it flooded So I moved up to Cairns and Port Douglas I wanted to be well prepared for warm conditions. If you start a year expecting to get fitter as it goes on, you’re already off the pace. So I have been working hard and have taken a bit more time to acclimatise my body to the heat. That’s why I’ve given up the gym recently and have been training outdoors.” Though Coulthard says that this year he feels very confident on a personal level, neither he nor his McLaren team-mate Mika Hakkinen were happy with their cars yesterday. They set only the fourth and sixth fastest times but neither was inclined to read too much significance into the gap to Ferrari.Whereas in Melbourne the McLaren appeared to be well balanced yet lacking in downforce compared to the Ferrari, here both drivers have complained that their cars lack bite on turn-in. The twists and turns of the Sepang circuit, the newest and most opulent on the F1 calendar, have always made it difficult to optimise a car’s handling, and the McLaren chief, Ron Dennis, admitted: “We have had more productive practices than those of today.”Privately, Hakkinen expressed his belief that McLaren have no chance of taking pole position unless they achieve a significant breakthrough in qualifying this afternoon. Nobody has come near the pole position time of 1min 37.397sec set by Schumacher in last October’s race; in Melbourne two weeks ago Schumacher beat the 2000 pole time within the first half-hour His eventual pole position lap was four seconds quicker.