Just a few days after the Luxembourg Grand Prix, and the Formula One circus is back to testing, with several teams sending their drivers to the Catalunya circuit, in Barcelona, spain. On the first day of testing, CART Champion Alex Zanardi made his return to Formula One, when he tested for his next year's team Williams. Another new memeber of F1 was the BAR team who is testing a revised 1998 Tyrrell with its official test driver Boullion.

Today, on the first day of testing, Michael Schumacher was the fastest driver, a little under a second ahead of David Coulthard. Both drivers concentrated on preparations for Suzuka, and mainly ran tyre tests throughout the day.

Driver          Team        Best time           laps
M. Schumacher   Ferrari     1.22.628            87      
D. Coulthard    McLaren     1.23.297            99      
J-P Montoya     Williams    1.24.521            53      
G. Fisichella   Benetton    1.24.605            55      
A. Zanardi      Williams    1.24.742            78      
A. Wurz         Benetton    1.24.895            41      
J. Muller       Sauber      1.24.984            92      
L. Badoer       Ferrari     1.25.368            14      
R. Barrichello  Stewart     1.25.529            69      
J-C Boullion    BAR         1.25.865            48      

Weather: air temp. 20-25 C, track 23-40 C, sunny

Testing will resume tomorrow.