Barcelona test, day 11: Prost still on top

The Frenchman, who set a new lap record for the Circuit de Catalunya yesterday, was the only man to dip into the 1m19s bracket today (Wednesday), despite suffering a rear suspension failure in the middle of the day.

Alesi admitted to running in qualifying trim with new tyres and very little fuel in his AP04, but denied rumours of sandbagging and running underweight. The 34-year-old was adamant that the car, which ran today with a new front wing, would be fully within the rules to compete in a Grand Prix.

Jarno Trulli took second place for Jordan and spent much of the day working on the reliability of the Silverstone-based team's new EJ11. The Italian completed a handful of longer runs and finished 0.671s behind Alesi.

The Williams-BMW team continued to be beset by reliability problems with the new FW23, but managed to finish the day with Ralf Schumacher in third spot. The German twice brought out the red flags by stopping on the circuit as a precautionary measure when instructed by his telemetry-monitoring engineers.

Jos Verstappen took fifth place in the sole Arrows-AMT. The Dutchman was due to carry out continued tyre development for Bridgestone, but was thwarted by mechanical problems with the interim A21 which culminated in him running out of fuel at the end of the day while on a final flying lap.

The Jaguars again propped up the time sheets with Luciano Burti finishing almost two seconds ahead of test driver Tomas Scheckter in last place. The young South African completed his second day of running in the R2, but has yet to try any 2001 rubber.

Both Ferrari and BAR-Honda arrive at Barcelona tomorrow. The world champions are expected to bring two 2000-spec cars for Rubens Barrichello to drive while Michael Schumacher continues to shakedown the new F2001 at Fiorano.

b>Barcelona test, day 11 - unofficial times
Pos Driver Car (Spec) Tyres Laps
Jean Alesi, Prost-Ferrari (2001) M, 1m19.423s, 33 laps
Jarno Trulli, Jordan-Honda (2001) B, 1m20.094s, 80 laps
Ralf Schumacher, Williams-BMW (2001) M, 1m20.568s, 67 laps
Jos Verstappen, Arrows-AMT (2000) B, 1m20.622s, 9 laps
Jenson Button, Benetton-Renault (2000) M, 1m20.647s, 66 laps
Juan Pablo Montoya, Williams-BMW (2000) M, 1m20.931s, 43 laps
Giancarlo Fisichella, Benetton-Renault (2000) M, 1m20.975s, 61 laps
Luciano Burti, Jaguar (2001) M, 1m22.321s, 62 laps
Tomas Scheckter*, Jaguar (2001) M, 1m24.239s, 35 laps
* - denotes test driver
M - Michelin
B - Bridgestone