Wednesday February 9th, 2000

Jos Verstappen continued to set the pace during this week's Formula One testing programme in Barcelona today, the Dutchman running a 'qualifying' lap on Wednesday morning to set the fastest time to date in 2000, of 1:20.65. "We had minimum fuel and soft tyres to set that time and the car was on the weight limit," said Tom Walkinshaw who arrived for the day to watch his latest car and driver in action.

Although others in the paddock suspected that the car was not running all the weight ballast that the team claimed, they were all agreed that despite that the times set by Verstappen should put the Arrows team well ahead of their traditional rivals in the opening races of the season.

With a race fuel load and harder tyres, Verstappen was also running respectable times, the Dutchman delighted with his return to the F1 saddle and his new mount after another 50 laps for the day with no major problems.

Heinz-Harald Frentzen had another reduced day of testing with the new Jordan-Mugen Honda, but still managed second fastest time of 1:21.96s. He lost time in the morning while another gearbox electronic problem was sorted and then spent the middle of the day waiting for a routine engine change to be completed. He returned for the final hour of practice to complete a total of 39 laps for the day.

Jarno Trulli continued testing his new car to-day, but like Frentzen lost a lot of time in the morning with gearbox electronic problems, which one time forced a harmless spin off the track. He ran more in the afternoon trying different set- ups on the car, but was unable to beat his best morning time of 1:22.15s with a total of some 40 laps.

Wurz had a difficult day with the new Benetton stopping several times out on the track with electrical problems, his best of 1m 23.27s also coming early in the morning and he ran only 38 laps for the day.

Nick Heidfeld was out in the new Prost AP03 for the first time running 42 laps with a best of 1:24.66s for the day, his morning times spent struggling with an oversize steering wheel after his own was found not to be working correctly when fitted to the car. It was later repaired and he ran more comfortable laps at the end of the day working on finding a balance for the car on its first serious outing since the brief showing last week which ended in suspension failure.

McLaren were readying their cars throughout the day along with the Jaguar team which are expected to start testing with two cars each on Thursday. Sauber are not due to begin testing until Friday.

Today's times:

Pos  Driver      Team                Time   
 1.  Verstappen  Arrows-Supertec     1:20.65
 2.  Frentzen    Jordan-Mugen Honda  1:21.96
 3.  Trulli      Jordan-Mugen Honda  1:22.15
 4.  Wurz        Benetton-Playlife   1:23.27
 5.  Heidfeld    Prost-Peugeot       1:24.66

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