Heinz-Harald Frentzen lifted the Arrows team from obscurity to record the second fastest time, behind Ferrari’s Michael Schumacher, ahead of Sunday’s Spanish GP on Friday.
Michael Schumacher’s F-2002 was blindingly quick during the two practice sessions at Spain’s Circuit de Catalunya on Friday. But, for once, Heinz-Harald Frentzen lifted the Arrows team from obscurity to record the second fastest time ahead of Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix. Can anyone beat Schumi this weekend?
The answer to the question may lie in the fact that none of Schumacher’s championship rivals really challenged Schumacher’s dominance on Friday. Schumacher was fastest in both sessions, and looks a hot favourite to continue a run of success that has already seen him win three of this year’s four races.
The Rory Byrne-designed F-2002 has proved itself to be a very aerodynamically efficient car this season and, if Bridgestone (Ferrari’s tyre manufacturer) continues to hold a performance advantage over French rivals Michelin (suppliers of McLaren Mercedes and Williams BMW), few would bet against Schumacher this weekend.
But the problem of trying to predict form using Friday practice sessions was apparent when Frentzen drove the mediocre Arrows Cosworth into second place on the time sheets, just 0,07 seconds behind the world champion.
Arrows may have looked quite effective at times this season – but Frentzen is unlikely to challenge McLaren, Williams and Renault, let alone Ferrari, in qualifying on Saturday. He was likely to have been using a low fuel load to set his time – 10 litres of fuel makes a difference of as much as 0,4 seconds a lap around Barcelona.
It is generally accepted that observers can only form a realistic impression of the teams’ performance levels towards the end of the Saturday morning free practice session, when teams are preparing for qualifying.
Nevertheless, the ease and frequency with which Schumacher set his times suggests Ferrari will continue to set the pace here, the BBC reported.
His team-mate, Rubens Barrichello, turned in another solid performance for the Scuderia. The Brazilian was fourth fastest, separated from Schumacher by Frentzen and ever-improving Renault driver Jenson Button, who is rumoured to be a possible replacement for the Brazilian at Ferrari in 2003.
Olivier Panis continued the BAR Honda team’s mini-revival as he set the fifth fastest time of 1:20,758, and Enrique Bernoldi, Frentzen’s team-mate was sixth in 1:20,834.
McLaren, normally very competitive at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya, appear to be struggling as they have at other races this year. Finn Kimi Raikkonen was their fastest driver, in seventh place, with team-mate David Coulthard 12th.
Williams BMW drivers Ralf Schumacher and Juan-Pablo Montoya, who are chasing Michael Schumacher in the championship, were a disappointing 13th and 15th. Even though the Spanish circuit was used extensively by Williams BMW for testing during the off-season, the team is not holding out any hope of upstaging the “Schumacher Show”.
"It is going to be a hard weekend for us," Montoya said. "They will be quicker than us, but hopefully we can win it, you never know. If Schumacher goes out and breaks down in this race and Ralf or I win it then we are back in it again. We have got to try and keep on scoring points and take advantage when we can.
“Everybody is going to come with new wings and new pieces and it is a matter of who is going to develop the car quicker throughout the year. Our car has the potential to get back. Last year we were quicker than Ferrari in the last few races so I don’t see why we can’t do it this year. We are a lot more competitive now than we were last year."