BAR: waiting for luck to strike

Fans will be encouraged, however, to remember that Jacques Villeneuve finished third in Spain in 2001, and just missed out on points in 2002. A much-improved package should give the Canadian some reason to be cheerful this weekend.

"I was extremely disappointed at how my race came to an end in Imola last weekend," he said. "We have been experiencing too many mechanical problems since the beginning of the season, when we should have been collecting as many points as possible.

"We are still experiencing mechanical problems which is delaying our progress. But the team is working extremely hard and I hope that we are able to secure a good result at the next race. We have had reasonably good races in Barcelona in the past. It is a good race track and there are some exciting high speed corners, although there aren't too many overtaking opportunities."

Team-mate Jenson Button will always remember Barcelona fondly. "Barcelona will always hold great memories for me as it's where I was when I found out I'd got my first F1 drive," he said. "It's a physical track as the long, sweeping bends put a lot of force onto the body. The city is fun but we don't get to see much of it during a race weekend...we have to wait for winter testing to try out all the restaurants.

"I didn't have a good result in Barcelona last year. I qualified sixth but we couldn't get the car balanced properly for the race so I had understeer in the high-speed corners and oversteer everywhere else. I then ended up with a hydraulic problem that stopped me before the end. This year my target here is to keep adding to our points tally but preferably a bit higher up the classification this time."