Team cautious despite strong form

By Huw Alban
April 29 2002

Arrows ended the Friday free practice sessions in 13th and 15th place, but this hides the teams initial strong form in the first session that saw Enrique Bernoldi be only third fastest behind the two Ferrari's. Despite the strong form the team are being cautious, with reliability a constant worry.

Heinz-Harald Frentzen joined the first practice session a little late because of an engine software problem, but immediately posted times into the top 6. He repeated some of the same during the second session, but finished the session in 13th place.

"My day was trouble-free apart from a little software problem this morning but that didn’t delay us for long," Frentzen said to the official Arrows website. "In general we have managed to collect good information for Sunday, concentrating on the balance of the car and race set-up. It’s very hot out there but that hasn’t caused us any problems. There is still room for improvement but we are making good progress."

Enrique Bernoldi was the team star of the day, setting extremely competitive times in the first session. He was annoyed with his spin out of the second session, but is happier with the car here than in Australia.

"If it hadn’t been for the spin I had halfway through the second session I would have had a very good day today," Bernoldi said to the team after the session had completed. "The car felt very good during the first session and I was able to set a good time. We were steadily improving during this afternoon’s session but my spin ended that. All in all, I am pleased with the progress we’ve made and happy that the car feels much better here than it did in Australia."

Technical Director Mike Coughlan, has been encouraged by the cars reliability in the difficult conditions at Sepang but was cautious in talking up the teams performance with reliability seeming to be the worry of the day. "We’ve had a pretty good day today," he said. "Heinz-Harald’s car had a software problem this morning which delayed him very slightly and Enrique’s car stopped out on the track at the end of that session. Aside from that, we didn’t have any other technical problems. Judging by the fuel loads we were running I’m reasonably happy with our pace. I’d rather we had completed more miles but you can’t have it all!"