JANUARY 10, 2005

Heidfeld stakes his claim (again)

Nick Heidfeld wants to be a BMW Williams driver in 2005 and he started the new year with the fastest time of the day at Jerez, beating Mark Webber's best time of the day by a tenth of a second. It is not clear what specifications the two men were using but the result will do the German driver no harm at all and will increase pressure from BMW for Williams to sign Heidfeld as the second driver, rather than taking on Antonio Pizzonia.

The only other team in action at Jerez was BAR which ran Anthony Davidson and Enrique Bernoldi.

Ferrari was in action at the Autodromo di Vallelunga near Rome where Luca Badoer completed 80 laps doing tyre development and software work.