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Valencia, day 2: Massa on the pace

Felipe Massa came within a tenth of a second of beating McLaren's Alex Wurz to the head of the timesheets in Valencia today (Wednesday). Wurz, who was using the hybrid MP4-16B, retained his top spot from the morning's session, but a late qualifying run from Massa came close to rocking the status quo

Wurz's best lap was also set with low fuel and new tyres. The McLaren test driver had a busy day covering 90 laps. Massa also conducted a lot of tyre work, concentrating on a high downforce set-up in the morning for Monaco and one more suited to the A1-Ring in the afternoon.

"I had another very good day today, with no problems at all," said Massa. "The car was running very well and we were able to try some qualifying set-ups."

Both drivers will make way tomorrow, with Kimi Raikkonen testing for McLaren and Nick Heidfeld for Sauber.

Antonio Pizzonia ended the day third quickest despite losing time when his car stopped on track late in the afternoon. The Brazilian was over a second behind the top two on his final day before he hands over to Juan Pablo Montoya.

David Coulthard was out in McLaren's 2002 car, which will feature new suspension geometry during the three-day test. The Scot had a mechanical failure which caused him to pull off at T1, bringing out one of three red flags shown during the morning session. He set the fifth best time, 1.5s down on Wurz.

Renault's Jarno Trulli was responsible for the other two stoppages. The second of these was an engine failure which restricted his afternoon running.

With no new parts to test, Jaguar drivers Pedro de la Rosa and Eddie Irvine spent the day working on set-up and tyres for the Austrian GP. De la Rosa improved in the afternoon to go fourth, but Irvine propped up the order, almost three seconds off the ultimate pace.


Alex Wurz McLaren-Mercedes* M 1m11.532s 90
Felipe Massa Sauber-Petronas B 1m11.635s 77
Antonio Pizzonia Williams-BMW M 1m12.880s 31
Pedro de la Rosa Jaguar M 1m12.931s 72
David Coulthard McLaren-Mercedes M 1m13.137s 67
Jarno Trulli Renault M 1m13.556s 57
Fernando Alonso Renault M 1m13.646s 51
Eddie Irvine Jaguar M 1m14.432s 54

M = Michelin
B = Bridgestone
* denotes 2001 car

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