Barcelona test, day 2: Jordan still quick

Eddie Jordan's team has shown itself to be a contender, along with Williams, for the 'best of the rest' slot behind Ferrari and McLaren after Frentzen finished fifth and fourth in the first two races of the season. The German's EJ11 set a time 0.1s ahead of the McLaren of test driver Alex Wurz.

The Austrian spent his first full day developing the team's traction control system in a 2000-spec car and completed 95 laps. Although the 26-year-old set a faster time than yesterday (Tuesday) - and leap-frogged the Ferrari of rival test driver Luca Badoer, who finished third - Wurz was still unhappy to be using the driver aid which makes a return at the Spanish Grand Prix next month.

"I don't really like it," said Wurz. "I like playing with the throttle and you have to have extra buttons on the steering wheel. The only good thing is that maybe I can concentrate on other things when I'm driving."

Eddie Irvine finished an encouraging fourth behind Badoer, deflecting rumours that his seat in the Jaguar team may be under threat from newly-signed test driver Pedro de la Rosa by setting a time more than half a second ahead of the Spaniard, who was 10th.

The Ulsterman's fourth place looked all the more impressive because his R2 was plagued by engine and gearbox problems, allowing him to complete just four laps all day.

Juan Pablo Montoya finished fifth for the ever-improving Williams-BMW team, but a nasty incident was narrowly avoided when the Colombian approached the second-gear SEAT corner at 150mph only to find Jenson Button's Benetton in the middle of the track. Montoya quickly threw his FW22 into a spin and came to a halt next to the man he replaced at Williams.

Arrows development driver Johnny Herbert spent much of the morning attempting to cure an understeer problem with the A22, then for the afternoon switched to the old car and relinquished the 2001 machine to race driver Enrique Bernoldi, who finished one place behind in seventh.

A surprise name on the time sheets was Champ Car driver Oriol Servia, who was testing for the Prost team due to a lack of race drivers for the Paris-based outfit. Rumours that Jean Alesi refused to test the car remain very much unsubstantiated...


Heinz-Harald Frentzen, Jordan (2001) B, 1m21.29s, 75 laps
Alex Wurz, McLaren-Mercedes (2000) B, 1m21.39s, 95 laps
Luca Badoer, Ferrari (2000) B, 1m21.66s, 57 laps
Eddie Irvine, Jaguar (2001) M, 1m21.88s, 4 laps
Juan Pablo Montoya, Williams-BMW (2001) M, 1m21.98s, 67 laps
Johnny Herbert, Arrows-AMT (2001) B, 1m22.00s, 42 laps
Enrique Bernoldi, Arrows-AMT (2001) B, 1m22.02s, 68 laps
Mark Webber, Benetton-Renault (2000) M, 1m22.42s, 61 laps
Marc Gene, Williams-BMW (2000) M, 1m22.45s, 46 laps
Pedro de la Rosa, Jaguar (2001) M, 1m22.57s, 45 laps
Jenson Button, Benetton-Renault (2001) M, 1m24.25s, 14 laps
Oriol Servia, Prost-Acer (2001) M, 1m25.49s, 29 laps
M - Michelin
B - Bridgestone