Day 2: Williams ahead on both tracks
Williams drivers Marc Gene and Antonio Pizzonia set the pace as F1 teams split themselves over two venues in pre-French GP testing. For the second day running F3000 star Pizzonia was quickest at Monza as BMW's superior grunt allowed the Brazilian to blast his way down the historic track's long straights
He spent the day concentrating on aerodynamic work and over the course of his 92 laps (almost two race distances) he set a best time of 1m23.976s.
In a bid to prevent a repeat of his disastrous start at Silverstone, Toyota's Allan McNish spent a large part of his day working on a clutch remedy, and much to his satisfaction the team appears to have got a handle on the problem.
"Today we worked on the clutch problem that we had at last week's British Grand Prix," said McNish, who was second fastest. "We now know what caused the problem and we have found a solution. Generally we made some progress with the car over the kerbs, but it is all about the whole package and Mika [Salo] will continue with this during tomorrow's session."
BAR tester Anthony Davidson was just fractions slower than McNish in third, but Jaguar's fortunes continue to flounder and Pedro de la Rosa and Andre Lotterer were not only over two seconds off the pace, but neither driver managed more than 23 laps.
Meanwhile in Spain, five teams were in action at Valencia. Local favourite Gene set the pace for Williams, a few tenths quicker than Jordan's Giancarlo Fisichella. The top two both managed to break the 1m13s barrier.
Despite question marks lingering over its future, Arrows joined the test and Heinz-Harald Frentzen once again underlined the A23's potential by setting the third quickest time. The busiest driver of the day was Renault tester Fernando Alonso, who did 93 laps, just one more than Nick Heidfeld, as he tested some revised bodywork on the R202 over a race distance.
Heidfeld concentrated on aerodynamic work ahead of the forthcoming French GP and he set a best time of 1m13.914s on his final day of testing. Felipe Massa will be behind the wheel of the C21 for the remainder of the test.
Antonio Pizzonia Williams-BMW 1m23.976s 92
Allan McNish Toyota 1m24.511s 71
Anthony Davidson BAR-Honda 1m25.561s 62
Pedro de la Rosa Jaguar 1m26.319s 22
Andre Lotterer Jaguar 1m27.061s 23
Patrick Lemarie BAR-Honda 1m27.149s
Marc Gene Williams-BMW M 1m12.643s 87
Giancarlo Fisichella Jordan-Honda B 1m12.960s 63
Heinz-Harald Frentzen Arrows-Cosworth B 1m13.214s 73
Fernando Alonso Renault M 1m13.605s 93
Nick Heidfeld Sauber-Petronas B 1m13.914s 92
M = Michelin
B = Bridgestone
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