Coulthard Breaks Valencia Record Again

David Coulthard lowered the Valencia circuit record for the second consecutive time on Tuesday, on the fourth day of testing at the Spanish track, lapping more than a tenth of a second faster than Monday when he broke Olivier Panis' record.

The Scot needed only 37 laps at the wheel of the new McLaren-Mercedes MP4-16 to be nearly eight tenths quicker than Italian Jarno Trulli driving the Jordan-Honda.

However, the McLaren team had a day full of mechanical failures, with Coulthard and test driver Alex Wurz causing a total of five red flags during the day.

Jordan's Heinz-Harald Frentzen concentrated on long runs with his Jordan, setting the fourth quickest time, also suffering an engine-related mechanical problem.

Brazilian Enrique Bernoldi, who spun during the session, was fifth fastest with the 2000-spec Arrows, while Jaguar's Luciano Burti was once more the top Michelin runner with the sixth quickest time.

Finn Kimi Raikkonen completed a race distance to set the seventh fastest time of the session in front of Sauber teammate Nick Heidfeld, both running the new Petronas-powered C20. The German lost a lot of time during the day due to an engine problem.

"I feel we had a very difficult day," said Heidfeld. "It was lucky that we spotted the oil leak this morning, but it´s a shame that we lost valuable track time. The team invested a lot of time to finalise all the set-ups we worked through today, and we made further progress."

The new Arrows A22 was hindered once again by a mechanical problem, and Jos Verstappen set the second slowest time, while Jaguar's Eddie Irvine repeated his performance from yesterday, ending the session in last place.

Testing at Valencia will conclude on Wednesday.

Today's times:

Pos Driver Team-Engine Tyres Time 1. Coulthard McLaren-Mercedes (B) 1:13.278 2. Trulli Jordan-Honda (B) 1:14.045 3. Wurz McLaren-Mercedes (B) 1:14:085 4. Frentzen Jordan-Honda (B) 1:14.136 5. Bernoldi Arrows-Asiatech (B) 1:14.571 6. Burti Jaguar-Cosworth (M) 1:14.688 7. Raikkonen Sauber-Petronas (B) 1:15.227 8. Heidfeld Sauber-Petronas (B) 1:15.247 9. Verstappen Arrows-Asiatech (B) 1:15.704 10. Irvine Jaguar-Cosworth (M) 1:16.053 All Timing Unofficial