FEBRUARY 12, 2001

McLaren dominate testing at Valencia

MCLAREN dominated testing at the Valencia circuit on Monday as David Coulthard topped the times, closely followed by the team's test driver Alexander Wurz.

Coulthard completed 69 laps with a quickest time of one minute and 13.40 seconds, two-hundredths of a second quicker than Wurz, who completed 32 laps.

Jordan driver Heinz-Harald Frentzen was third quickest on his first day of testing at the Spanish circuit, fractionally ahead of Arrows new-boy Enrique Bernoldi.

Frentzen's team-mate Jarno Trulli, also in his first day, was fifth ahead of Jaguar's Eddie Irvine and Sauber duo Kimi Raikkonen and Nick Heidfeld.

Raikkonen spun into a tire wall on his last lap of the day, but escaped unscathed as he and team-mate Heidfeld concentrated on aerodynamic and tire work.

"I had a bit of a difficult day," said Raikkonen. "It began with a gearbox problem and that lost me a lot of running time. I also spun the car but the damage was not significant."

Raikkonen's car, in fact, needed a gearbox change but he still beat Arrows driver Jos Verstappen and Jaguar's Luciano Burti in the times.

Times after Monday's testing at Valencia:

POS DRIVER ENTRANT TIME
David Coulthard McLaren 1:13.406
Alexander Wurz McLaren 1:13.423
Heinz-Harald Frentzen Jordan 1:14.164
Enrique Bernoldi Arrows 1:14.481
Jarno Trulli Jordan 1:14.776
Eddie Irvine Jaguar 1:14.876
Kimi Raikkonen Sauber 1:15.645
Nick Heidfeld Sauber 1:15.688
Jos Verstappen Arrows 1:15.763
10  Luciano Burti Jaguar 1:16.110