By Huw Alban
May 10 2002

OrangeArrows seem pleased with their days work today in Austria. Enrique Bernoldi finished the practice sessions in a strong 6th, whilst Heinz-Harald Frentzen finished 13th having an incident filled day and still feels that there is work to be done. Enrique was in strong form throughout both the free practice sessions today, and is basically happy with the balance of his car. "I’m pleased with our results from Free Practice," he said in the teams official post Friday practice press release. "Everything went okay for me apart from a puncture towards the end of the first session. I sat out the last few minutes so we could save the tyres. The car certainly feels well balanced here so I’m happy about that.”

Heinz-Harald Frentzen looked to struggle to match Enrique's competitive form in the first session today, but then suddenly got it together. It then all appeared to fall apart in the second session with a number of dramatic trips through the gravel spoiling the German's day.

“It was basically a good day today," Frentzen said after the session. "I had an ‘off’ at the last corner during the second session which unfortunately broke the floor. The team did a good job replacing it and I was able to get out again before the end of practice but didn’t have quite enough time for a flying lap. I’m feeling optimistic. We’ve still got a bit of work to do but I’m hopeful we’ll have a good weekend.”

Technical Director, Mike Coughlan, wasn't exactly bubbling over with enthusiasm with regard to Enrique's strong performance today but acknowledged that the team had made some sound progress and were looking forward to preparing for the qualifying hour tomorrow. “Fairly happy with today as we got all the work done and the times are pretty much what we expected," he said. "Heinz had a problem during the second session, which meant we had to change the floor of his A23 but otherwise he made steady progress. Enrique did a good job today and he too made steady progress. We’re looking forward to tomorrow and will spend the morning working on our qualifying set-up.”

Qualifying has so far been the teams weakest point with regard to performance. At the Silverstone test a week ago the team were supposed to have been working to solve their qualifying balance problems - it'll be interesting to see whether this work has paid off.