Takuma Sato set a flying lap at the end of Saturday morning's practice at Suzuka, recording the quickest lap of the Bridgestone runners behind Ferrari.  The morning's track action was dominated by Michael Schumacher, although his younger brother was only three tenths of a second behind the Champion in his Williams.

Sato's mechanics saw a repeat of their Saturday morning task in Indianapolis and once again delivered an impressive result in replacing the entire rear end of his car in 30 minutes between the two sessions, following an engine blow at the close of the first session.

Gary Anderson said, "We lost a bit of time after Takuma's engine failed but he and the team recovered really well.  The car doesn't look too bad on new tyres for qualifying and if we pull it all together we might have a chance of getting both cars quite close into the top ten.  The midfield is just so tight though, with tenths of a second separating us, so if you just blink at the wrong time it can go wrong.  It can all come down to who has the most guts in the 'S' bends!"