Barcelona test, day 14: The marathon is over…

Ferrari's number two set a new lap record at the Catalan circuit, beating Jean Alesi's time set last week in a 2001-Prost by 0.3s. The Brazilian posted a time of 1m18.60s during the morning session and then proceeded to work on tyre and electronics development for the rest of the day.

Nick Heidfeld continued to shine for the Sauber team by taking second spot, just over half a second behind Barrichello. The young German worked on the reliability of the all-new C20 and completed a mammoth 100 laps.

"I'm very happy with the amount of mileage that I've done," said Heidfeld, "it's nothing like last year [with Prost]. I'm not that bothered about the time, we're more concerned about reliability at the moment."

Despite causing two of the day's three red flags, new Arrows signing Enrique Bernoldi managed to go third fastest. Bernoldi, who was announced as the replacement for Pedro de la Rosa at the Leafield-based team last week, left the track twice in two hours at the Respsol curve due to driver error.

Jordan's Heinz-Harald Frentzen finished fourth as the German continued to improve the pace of the EJ11. Although the speed of the 2001 car has improved in recent days, sources suggest the Silverstone based team's 2001 challenger is suffering from over-heating problems and engineers worked on the flow of air to the Honda V10 engine during the afternoon.

BAR-Honda's Olivier Panis switched to the 2001 BAR003 today (Saturday) following the departure of Jacques Villeneuve. The Frenchman finished the day fifth after struggling with the set-up which had been adjusted to suit his team mate. BAR test-driver Darren Manning carried out gearbox work in the 2000 car and finished in eighth place.

Benetton again finished at the bottom of the time sheets with Jenson Button concentrating on tyre development work for Michelin, while team mate Giancarlo Fisichella continued to put more laps on the all-new B201.

Fisichella completed 29 laps, but the Italian's running was cut short by yet another failure of Renault's wide-angled engine. The car stopped out on the circuit bringing out the third red flag of the day just half an hour before close of play.

"We have one particular problem which we have to fix," said Benetton's technical director, Mike Gascoygne, "but I can't tell you what it is."

With the team trucks finally pulling out of the Barcelona paddock, testing continues in earnest next week at Valencia, Mugello, Estoril and also the Kyalami circuit in South Africa.


Rubens Barrichello, Ferrari (2000) B, 1m18.60s, 58 laps
Nick Heidfeld, Sauber-Ferrari (2001) B, 1m19.15s, 100 laps
Enrique Bernoldi, Arrows-AMT (2000) B, 1m19.57s, 66 laps
Heinz-Harald Frentzen, Jordan-Honda (2001) B, 1m20.09s, 44 laps
Olivier Panis, BAR-Honda (2001) B, 1m20.97s, 68 laps
Kimi Raikkonen, Sauber-Ferrari (2001) B, 1m21.13s, 13 laps
Jenson Button, Benetton-Renault (2000) M, 1m21.80, 67 laps
Darren Manning*, BAR-Honda (2000) B, 1m22.10s, 69 laps
Giancarlo Fisichella, Benetton-Renault (2001) M, 1m22.55s, 29 laps
M - Michelin
B - Bridgestone
*Denotes test driver