Monday February 21st, 2000

Arrows' Jos Verstappen was fastest today, setting a time lower than last year's record and the third fastest time of 2000, with a 1:20.36.

There was a wet start to the day's testing in Barcelona, Jos Verstappen in A21-01 ran 38 laps on wets in the morning completing some valuable wet set up work for the team. Chassis A21-02's gearbox problem from Sunday proved more serious then at first thought, hence the car was sidelined for the day as the crew waited for parts to arrive from the team's Leafield base.

The circuit dried out by 2pm allowing Jos to make the switch to grooved tyres, he continued to work on race set up and completed a simulated race stint including a pit stop. To finish the day Jos had a new tyre run to set a time and confirmed the pace of the new Arrows A21 by setting a 1:20.36 lap time, just a fraction slower than the time set earlier this month by teammate Pedro de la Rosa, of 1:20.23.

In total Jos ran 93 laps and his second race distance in as many days. De la Rosa will continue testing with the second car tomorrow.

Also present at testing today were both Minardi drivers. Marc Gene took to track first and could take advantage from the peculiar windy conditions to test, among other things, brakes' sensibility. The work turned out troublefree for the Spanish driver, who's getting more and more familiar with his new car's behaviour.

His teammate Gaston Mazzacane finished in the afternoon his work program as scheduled by his engineers. Concentration was focused mainly on the driver's feelings aboard his car rather than on performance. The driver also carried out race start and pit stops simulations in order to get used to race typical conditions.

Tomorrow morning Gene will complete his programme on the Montmelo track. After six days of testing and 1,250km achieved, Minardi is scheduled to go back to Italy tomorrow afternoon.

Today's times:

Pos  Driver      Team               Time      Laps
 1.  Verstappen  Arrows-Supertec    1:20.360   93 
 2.  Gene        Minardi-Fondmetal  1:22.757   45 
 3.  Mazzacane   Minardi-Fondmetal  1:23.781   28 

The 2000 Barcelona lap record is 1:20.230 (P. de la Rosa);
the 1999 Barcelona lap record is 1:20.540 (R. Barrichello)