MARCH 24, 1997

...and at Monza

FERRARI and Minardi decided to test at Monza and Michael Schumacher emerged fastest after his three days of running with a best lap of 1m24.13s.

Although the team can claim that this was faster than Damon Hill's pole position at the Autodromo Nazionale last September, it was not really a very impressive time as the team has not made much progress over Schumacher's qualifying time of 1m24.781s at the Italian Grand Prix, particularly as lap times have been slashed in recent weeks at other tracks all over Europe.

The test was a success in that Schumacher was able to run reliably with the new V10 engine which the team decided not to use in Australia. In the course of the test Schumacher had one big spin which lost him most of the rest of that day because the car needed to be repaired. He also suffered from a broken clutch while practicing starts.

Eddie Irvine was kept busy tire testing, running 15 different sets of tires from four different compounds.

Minardi did just one day of running with Ukyo Katayama completing 39 laps with a best lap of 1m26.730s as he sorted out the fuel feed problems which the team suffered from in Australia.