Barcelona test, day 3: Wurz pushes

Wurz completed a mammoth 129 laps and is believed to be pushing hard in order to keep him in the minds of Formula 1 team bosses. The Austrian has signed as test driver for McLaren-Mercedes next year, but is also thought to be chasing Jordan, Arrows and Prost for a possible drive next year.

McLaren team boss Ron Dennis has made it clear that should Wurz find a race drive elsewhere, then he is free to leave the Woking team.

Benetton's third driver Mark Webber finished the day in second place just over half a second behind Wurz. The Australian spent much of the day working on a new specification engine for the Renault-owned team and was commended by technical director Mike Gascoyne as having done an 'excellent job'.

Pedro de la Rosa took over the reins from team mate Eddie Irvine at Jaguar and wound up third. Like Wurz, the Spaniard also had a lengthy day behind the wheel and completed 125 laps, but finished almost a second behind Webber.

Of the two Williams drivers present, Formula 1 hopeful Antonio Pizzonia finished in fourth just ahead of regular test driver Marc Gene. While Pizzonia completed development work in an FW23, Gene continued to pound round in an interim chassis putting more miles on the 2002 version of BMW's latest V10.

"We have used this important final test of 2001 to sign off on some last minute components for next year's car and have also done some work for Michelin for the last race in Suzuka," said Williams chief operations engineer Sam Michael. "We were happy that Antonio could join us again as he has done a good job. Marc has been doing development work for next year putting mileage on the new engine."


1 Alex Wurz, McLaren-Mercedes B, 1m18.794s, 129 laps
Mark Webber, Benetton-Renault M, 1m19.388s, 30 laps
Pedro de la Rosa, Jaguar M, 1m20.407s, 125 laps
Antonio Pizzonia, Williams-BMW M, 1m20.891s, 85 laps
Marc Gene, Williams-BMW M, 1m21.104s, 32 laps