The 37-year-old Frenchman had promised to treat his many fans to a final flourish after announcing his retirement earlier in the week saying that he would drive like he did when he started his F1 career in 1989.

The Jordan driver began to keep his word immediately, beaming with satisfaction after giving the crowd their money's worth in an eventful session on a sunny afternoon at Suzuka.

He may well have been helped by a low fuel load, while others worked on setup, but nobody was begrudging him his moment in the limelight.
"Things cannot be better than finishing first for my last Friday," Alesi said afterwards. " I really enjoyed the session! From first thing this morning the car felt really competitive, and then, working with my race engineer, we made even more progress. I find it so enjoyable to drive on this circuit – it’s so exciting because the track gives you so much feel for what you are doing. On most circuits you reach the limit of what the car can do so quickly whereas here you can keep pushing the boundaries out. It was really fun out there today.”
"For sure it is going to be the fastest weekend in my life, I really love motor racing, I need it and I want to stop in the best way."

The Frenchman's time of one minute 35.454 seconds was well inside Michael Schumacher's 2000 pole of 1:35.825 and half a second quicker than the Williams of Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya.
Despite finishing over two seconds behind his teammate, Jarno was also content with his day's work. he explained. “We did a lot of laps, concentrating on race car set up and I feel confident about how things are going to go as today the car felt very balanced. We still need to make improvements to the rear end, particularly to traction, but I feel we worked very well today, so overall my feeling is very positive for the weekend.”

The session was halted frequently as Heidfeld had a huge 150mph crash in the ‘S’ curves, Enge wrecked his Prost after putting it in the tyre barrier, Coulthard had a fire in the garage his car and Alesi spun his EJ11 near the end of the session.

Times from Free Practice at Suzuka
Pos.	Driver	Team	Tyre	Time
1	Alesi	Jordan	B	1:35.454
2	Montoya	Williams	M	1:35.997
3	de la Rosa	Jaguar	M	1:36.225
4	Hakkinen	McLaren	B	1:36.430
5	Frentzen	Prost	M	1:36.439
6	Irvine	Jaguar	M	1:36.589
11	Trulli	Jordan	B	1.37.564