Barcelona 1: Montagny tops

Montagny, who will be Renault's Friday tester at Grands Prix next year, recorded the best time after a day's tyre work around the Catalunya circuit. The Frenchman tried new Michelin constructions and made useful progress.

Coulthard (second-quickest), driving the 2004 MP4-19, was significantly quicker than Wurz (fourth) in the MP4-17D with which the team ended the 2003 season.

Wurz was thought to be in the running for the vacant 2004 drive at Jaguar, but was disappointed when countryman Christian Klien was confirmed for the seat this morning. Wurz went quicker than the inexperienced Klien today, who nonetheless did well by completing 91 laps with a best time less than three seconds away from Montagny.



Montagny was joined by Renault development driver Jose Maria Lopez, who ran 60 mostly trouble-free laps. But the Argentinian was then hindered by a terminal engine failure on what looked set to be his quickest lap.

Toyota were represented by Ryan Briscoe and Ricardo Zonta, whilst Jaguar's Mark Webber was also on hand, setting third-best time.

Franck Montagny Renault M 1m16.336s 108
David Coulthard McLaren-Mercedes M 1m16.609s 75*
Mark Webber Jaguar M 1m17.175s 94
Alex Wurz McLaren-Mercedes M 1m17.252s 77
Ricardo Zonta Toyota M 1m17.653s 84
Ryan Briscoe Toyota M 1m18.189s 79
Christian Klien Jagaur M 1m18.248s 89
Jose Maria Lopez Renault M 1m18.897s 60

* denotes 2004 car
M = Michelin