Thursday February 3rd, 2000

Heinz-Harald Frentzen set the fastest time today, on the third day of testing at Barcelona. The German was 0.35s faster than Benetton's Giancarlo Fisichella, in second place on the time-sheet.

The Jordan team reported a very productive day of testing, Frentzen saying: "We completed 86 laps today without any problems which indicates that the car's reliability is very good. We are making good progress and are understanding the car more each day." Jordan worked on long reliability runs and practice starts.

Fisichella switched to the 1999 Benetton today, running 30 laps and working on a development gearbox. The Italian set the second fastest time of the day, at 1:22.79 secs. His teammate, Alexander Wurz, ran the new car and was unable to better 1:23.41, despite running some 50 laps during the day.

Things did not go well for the Arrows team. Pedro de la Rosa ran only 9 laps before going off at the end of the pit straight when the front nose section collapsed and went under the car. He came to rest in the gravel trap without any serious damage to the car, which should be running tomorrow with a revised nose section being flown out overnight from England. Until that point he had set a time of 1:25.02.

Today's Times:

Pos  Driver      Team                Time   
 1.  Frentzen    Jordan-Mugen Honda  1:22.44
 2.  Fischella   Benetton-Playlife   1:22.79
 3.  Wurz        Benetton-Playlife   1:23.41
 4.  de la Rosa  Arrows-Supertec     1:25.02

The 1999 Barcelona lap record is 1:20.540 (R. Barrichello)