By Huw Alban
April 29 2002

OrangeArrows posted their best qualifying position of the year so far today, with Frentzen in a strong 10th position. Both A23's ran faultlessly during the free practices and the qualifying hour, and the team and the drivers are feeling very optimistic for the race tomorrow. Just like in the Friday practices, OrangeArrows continued to put in a strong performance during free practice on Saturday. Enrique Bernoldi was quick to claim the top spot in the early part of the first session today, and both cars ran faultlessly to finish in 10th and 12th places with Enrique ahead of his team mate.

Both drivers were quick to take to the track again for the start of the final practice session, and again the A23's ran without problem. Frentzen made the most gain moving up to 6th fastest, whilst Bernoldi slipped to 10th - but this is still the strongest form we've seen from the team all year.

The faultless form continued into the qualifying hour, with Bernoldi first out claiming P1 on his first flying lap. The session was completely free of incident for the team, apart from a red flag spoiling one of Heinz-Harald's laps. The session was interrupted 11 minutes from the end for the front wing of Mark Webber's Minardi to be rescued from the pit straight.

Despite the interruption the team again ran strongly with Frentzen lining up 10th on the grid - the best so far this year for Arrows. Enrique Bernoldi also continued to run well and lines up 14th, about 4/10ths behind his team mate.

"Top ten is great for the team and I'm pleased because the boys all did a very good job today," Frentzen said in the teams post qualifying press release. "The improvements we made at Silverstone have helped us to find the right direction so I'm very happy with the result. Results like this also help to lift the team. We have showed that both cars are competitive here and, as our race pace is still stronger than our qualifying pace, we're hopeful of a good day tomorrow."

Enrique Bernoldi scored his best ever F1 qualifying position. "Well I had a pretty good day today. The car was generally well balanced, I had a touch of understeer but nothing major. The session went to plan and we improved the car for every run. Fourteenth is my best qualifying position so far so I'm happy with that and very much looking forward to having a good run tomorrow."

"Well we knew we had to beat one of the top five teams to get into the top ten and I have to say that I'm surprised it was a Sauber," added Mike Coughlan, Technical Director. "We have shown our competitiveness all weekend and both drivers did a very good job today. The Bridgestone tyres certainly look very strong for the race so we're optimistic."