Badoer Quickest Again at Barcelona - Day Two

Italian Luca Badoer continued on top of the time sheets for the second consecutive day of testing at the Barcelona circuit in Spain, where all Formula One teams except Sauber and Minardi are carrying out a four-day session at the Spanish track.

Badoer, faster on Tuesday driving both the 2000-spec Ferrari F1-2000 and the new F2001, was once again fastest on Wednesday, completing a total of 85 laps around the Circuit de Catalunya. The Italian driver kept working on the electronic systems of the car, ending the day in front of Jordan's Heinz-Harald Frentzen, who was less than two tenths slower than Badoer.

Jordan was one of the four team to join the session today, along with Jaguar, Benetton, BAR and Prost. McLaren's test driver Alex Wurz completed a massive 103 laps on his way to third spot, while Jaguar's Eddie Irvine completed only five laps, but was fourth quickest after his mechanics were forced to make an engine change.

Veteran Johnny Herbert continued working on the old Arrows A21, completing 43 laps to set the fifth quickest time today. The Briton was pleased with his day's work despite suffering some electrical problems.

"We had a few problems this afternoon but overall I'm happy with the progress we've made over the last two days," Herbert said. "We have made improvements to the A22 but still have a long way to go but we now know what areas we should be looking at."

Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya joined Marc Gene today at the Williams team. The rookie worked at the wheel of the FW23 chassis, setting the sixth fastest time, and he was nearly half a second quicker than the Spanish test driver, who drove the FW22 and who suffered a mechanical problem which forced the session to be red-flagged.

"We had a pretty good day, doing some tyre testing and working a bit on traction control," said Montoya. "There is still a lot of work to be done but at this stage everything looks reasonably good. I am still a bit jet-lagged though, this morning I woke up at 5:00am."

Compatriot Pedro de la Rosa was tenth quickest with the second Jaguar, while Briton Jenson Button continued to struggle with the Benetton B201. The young driver could only complete seventeen laps on his first day of testing at Barcelona, ending the session more than four seconds off the fastest time, and nearly two seconds slower than the team's test driver Mark Webber, who was eighth today.

Still without an official test driver, the Prost team used Spanish CART driver Oriol Servia to test today, setting the slowest time of the day.

Patrick Lemarie was also present at the track for the BAR team, but he was unable to complete any timed laps.

Today's times:

Pos Driver Team-Engine Tyres Time 1. Badoer Ferrari (B) 1:21.051 2. Frentzen Jordan-Honda (B) 1:21.293 3. Wurz McLaren-Mercedes (B) 1:21.370 4. Irvine Jaguar-Cosworth (M) 1:21.900 5. Herbert Arrows-Asiatech (B) 1:21.981 6. Montoya Williams-BMW (M) 1:21.999 7. Bernoldi Arrows-Asiatech (B) 1:22.008 8. Webber Benetton-Renault (M) 1:22.419 9. Gene Williams-BMW (M) 1:22.453 10. de la Rosa Jaguar-Cosworth (M) 1:22.568 11. Button Benetton-Renault (M) 1:24.253 12. Servia Prost-Acer (M) 1:25.490 13. Lemarie BAR-Honda (B) no time All Timing Unofficial