Suzuka 31st October
As Ricardo knew Suzuka only from GT racing he spent the first session on old tyres getting familiarized with the track. Early on in the second session the team gave him new tyres, possibly a bit too early to put them to optimal use, but he finished in 17th position. The team suffered very much from lack of grip throughout the sessions.
"It's my first time at Suzuka in a F1 so I spent the morning on old tyres and didn't push at first because the car was very low and I didn't know its limit here. In the second session we put on new tyres, the car was a lot better and I found a lot of grip. Although the new tyres made a big difference I couldn't push too hard not knowing the limit of the car, so I maybe lost about half a second on my first flying lap."
Friday 1st practice:
15th, 1:45.364 +3.618
Friday combined practice:
17th, 1:43.776 +2.030, 40 laps
The Saturday practice sessions were problematical for Ricardo. He had a spin in the first session and damaged the front of the car which led to lengthy repairs and Ricardo was late for the second session. He finished in 17th position.
During qualifying Ricardo did a 1:41.536 and later improved it to 1:40.861 but in the last minutes of qualifying there was an incident with Häkkinen and Diniz creating yellow flags and Ricardo failed to improve.
"This is quite a difficult circuit to set up the car. We improved it a lot from this morning, but not enough to make the times we wanted. I lost my first set of tyres through traffic and got a yellow flag on my last."
Saturday practice:
17th, 1:41.596 +2.511, 20 laps
Qualifying:
18th, 1:40.861 +3.391, 11 laps
Ricardo finished the first lap in 17th position between Fisichella (Benetton) and Gene (Minardi). On lap four Trulli (Prost) retired and Fisichella went off so Ricardo climbed to 15th but as the car was both understeering and without grip Ricardo had a handful to keep Gene (Minardi) behind. Ricardo gained further positions when Hill (Jordan) pitted and Panis retired. Ricardo pitted on lap 19 without losing any position and the team changed the front wing settings. Ricardo continued with a car that now felt better balanced. He was lapped by the leader on lap 26 and made his secondpit stop on lap 33, again without losing any position. He climbed to 12th when Coulthard (McLaren) retired on lap 39 andcontinued to take the flag in that position, the first time both BAR-Supertecs made it to the finish.
"It was not a very exciting race for me. I had some understeer at the start and then we changed the front wing at the first pit stop. The balance was good after that but I still had no grip."
Warmup:
20th, 1:44.816 +4.186, 12 laps
Race:
12th, -1 lap
Winner: Mika Häkkinen (McLaren-Mercedes)