JULY 7, 2000

Panis maintains dominance at Mugello

TEST driver Olivier Panis continued McLaren's dominance in the final day of testing at Mugello, Italy, as he outpaced world championship leader Michael Schumacher.

Frenchman Panis produced a quickest lap time of one minute and 25.182 seconds

as he went three-tenths of a second quicker than Ferrari's Schumacher.

But the German insisted his 114 laps of the circuit has provided him with the perfect preparation for next week's Austrian Grand Prix, and was unconcerned about the lap times.

"I am happy with what we have achieved over the past two days here in Mugello," Schumacher said after powering to a quickest lap of one minute and 25.499 seconds.

"We managed to cover a lot of kilometers, working on tires, engine and aerodynamics. It has been a positive test, from which we have accumulated a lot of useful data.

"We also tried out a few new things for the Austrian Grand Prix because the characteristics of the Mugello track are ideal preparations for a race at the A1-Ring."

Schumacher now moves to Ferrari's Fiorano circuit where he will continue further preparations with test driver Luca Badoer.