NOVEMBER 26, 2004

The week of testing in Barcelona

It was an interesting four days of testing in Barcelona but not too many conclusions should be drawn from the lap times as some teams were clearly not going for lap times. The fastest time of the week went to McLaren's new boy Juan Pablo Montoya who set a best of 1m14.202s and completed a total of 168 laps of the circuit. The other McLaren was shared between Alexander Wurz and Pedro de la Rosa and the Austrian clocked a best lap of 1m15.871s after 186 laps. De la Rosa did 90 laps with a best of 1m15.418s.

Second quickest in the test was Ralf Schumacher in the Toyota and the other Toyota drivers were all going quickly. Ralf's best after 162 laps was 1m14.618s. Jarno Trulli was the fourth fastest of the week with a best of 1m14.881s after 233 laps and Ricardo Zonta was fifth quickest overall with a best of 1m14.978s after 147 laps in a day.

The third quickest time of the week went to Felipe Massa in the Sauber with a best over two days of 1m14.661s after 143 laps. Jacques Villeneuve took over on the last day of the test and clocked a 1m15.196s after 95 laps which was the seventh best time of the week.

Mark Webber was sixth fastest in his Williams-BMW and did a total of 235 laps over four days while his team mate Antonio Pizzonia was only able to do 1m15.504s during his three days. He completed only 102 laps because of gearbox problems while developing the team's traction-control system.

The eighth fastest time of the week went to F1 new boy Vitantonio Liuzzi, who completed a total of 225 laps during his three days with a best of 1m15.351s. This was slightly quicker than the best lap achieved by Christian Klien who completed 255 laps for a best of 1m15.526s, the 12th fastest time of the test. Bjorn Wirdheim also did a handful of laps for the team.

Renault was keeping a low profile with Giancarlo Fisichella completing 218s laps for a best of 1m15.404s. Renault test driver Franck Montagny completed 198 laps and set a best of 1m16.437s.

Ferrari was also keeping its powder dry with Luca Badoer and Marc Gene doing a lot of laps but no spectacular times: Badoer did 260 laps for a best of 1m15.649s while Gene did a whopping 354 laps during his four days of running and recording a best of 1m15.652s.

BAR-Honda was also keeping a low profile with Jenson Button, Takuma Sato and Enrique Bernoldi all in action. Button was the fastest with a best of 1m16.745s after 192 laps; Sato did only 52 laps and recorded a 1m16.750s and Bernoldi managed a 1m16.864s after his 188 laps.