Villeneuve Surprise Friday Fastest.

Jacques Villeneuve stunned the Formula One establishment by posting fastest time of the Friday free practice session in Malaysia.


Allied to Michael Schumacher's impressive return - fastest in the opening hour by 8/10ths - Villeneuve's performance rounded out a surprising session, and gave heart to the struggling British American Racing outfit as it seeks its first points of the season. Despite pronouncing the new Sepang layout as 'a difficult circuit to drive', the diminutive Canadian wound up a tenth clear of McLaren's David Coulthard, with title contenders Eddie Irvine, Mika Hakkinen and Heinz-Harald Frentzen in fourth, eighth and 14th places respectively. Schumacher took fifth overall.


The Malaysian climate did its best to influence the session, as the drivers were greeted by a wet track and the forecast of thunderstorms to come. The conditions suited F1's returning rainmeister down to the ground in the opening hour and, after trading times with fellow wet-weather specialist Jean Alesi, the Schumacher name was returned to the top of the timesheets for the first time since mid-summer.


With or without the additional hazard of rain, however, the green surface continued to catch out the unwary, and both sessions were punctuated by spins. Irvine, Alesi and Benetton's Giancarlo Fisichella were among those to leave the road in the opening hour but, as the track dried and times tumbled from in excess of two minutes to a more acceptable 1min 40secs region, it became clear that the drivers were gradually coming to grips with a circuit few had seen except on video games.


The second session provided more of the same, with a dry circuit allowing the 22 runners to experiment with various lines on the wide expanses of tarmac. There were still spins - with both Jordans going off towards the end of the hour - and the alarming sight of Olivier Panis' Prost breaking both front brake discs simultaneously before running off the road, before Villeneuve finally wrapped his best showing of the year.


Behind the BAR, Coulthard headed and oversteer-plagued Alesi in second and third, with the two Ferraris next up. The second Sauber of Pedro Diniz completed a successful day for local sponsor Petronas in sixth, with the lead Stewart of Rubens Barrichello also separating Hakkinen from his main rivals.


Both Stewart drivers complained of handling problems, however, with European GP winner Johnny Herbert down in tenth overall, while Ralf Schumacher (Williams), Jarno Trulli (Prost) and Ricardo Zonta (BAR) all lost valuable running time with varied mechanical problems and safety checks. Minardi again provided a surprise, with Luca Badoer racking up 16th best time, but team-mate Marc Gene finished some seven seconds off the pace after a spin and handling problems.


As always on a Friday, the majority of drivers believed that nothing could be read into their respective performances and, given the nature of the circuit, suggested that things would be different when the real business of qualifying got underway.