Gerhard Berger was the fastest man on ...

Published on 11 October 1996 by Verstappen Info Page

Gerhard Berger was the fastest man on friday. With a time of 1:42.350 he was fastest in the afternoon practice session, followed by Hakkinen and Schumacher. Villeneuve, Hill and Brundle were 4th, 5th and 6th. Jos only came out for a couple of laps and made a 16th time. The morning session was a wet one with a fastest time by Schumacher and Jos 19th with only three laps driven. See Japanese Grand Prix Results for the standings.

Jos' comment after the session: "I've tested here before, but never raced here, so I still feel that I'm learning the circuit. Of course, it always helps to have been here before, but then the rain made it different this morning. I'm still finding the limits and the braking points."

"It wasn't necessary to push hard today, but we still have some understeer so we need to get rid of that. We had planned to go out earlier than we did, but first of all the steering was heavy, and then I have some new driving shoes and the pedals had to be adjusted for them. In fact I reverted to my old shoes - and the old pedal adjustment."

"I hope that tomorrow will be dry, however. It's a really nice circuit, but it will be much nicer to drive on when it's dry. I'm really looking forward to it."