Despite a historical record of good results in Spain, McLaren struggled to find an optimum set-up in Friday free practice for the 2002 event. Kimi Raikkonen ended up seventh fastest with a time of 1.20.996 and David Coulthard was twelfth after posting a 1.21.298.

Both drivers complained about the handling of their MP4-17s, but Raikkonen was more pleased than Coulthard at the end of the day. "Initially we were struggling to find a good set-up for the car, but we made considerable improvements during the second session," he said in a team press release.

"We had to collect a lot of new data as the conditions today were different from pre-season testing. I'm positive about qualifying."

"This track always has significant tyre degradation after the first timed lap, but that aside, I just can't get a consistent balance out of the car," his Scottish team mate added. "The engineers and myself have to work hard to understand where our problems lie.

Team boss Ron Dennis also acknowledged some difficulties with the car. "Most of our lap time deficit is, as is often the case on a Friday, mainly representative of the varying fuel loads," he said.

"That said, we are really struggling to find the same level of balance that we were able to achieve in our pre-season testing. Hopefully the considerable amount of data that we have available will assist in achieving a better set-up for tomorrow."