F1 Barcelona, day 1: Coulthard quickest

Tyre testing was the order of the day for most of the eight drivers present at a track which favours the hard compound tyres the teams are expecting to use at Silverstone for the British GP.

Antonio Pizzonia was second fastest. The Williams driver had a busy day, covering 103 laps in long 15-20 lap stints. As well as tyre work for Michelin, the Brazilian also assessed the team's BMW engine.

Nick Heidfeld had a new undertray fitted to his Sauber. It has shown impressive figures in the windtunnel, but the German was unsure as to whether it was an actual improvement. Felipe Massa will try the new part tomorrow before the team decides whether to run it in the next race.

Jenson Button had a technical problem which caused his car to stop on track, and he did just 44 laps of electronics testing. Alex Wurz and Pizzonia also stopped on track, while Takuma Sato suffered an engine blow as he was conducting suspension work for Jordan.

Jaguar joins the test tomorrow with a single car, while its revised chassis will arrive on Thursday.

Ferrari test driver Luca Badoer was in action today at Mugello. The Italian spent the day working on electronics and tyre testing, covering 42 laps (eight on the short course) setting a quickest time of 1m24.349s.

The team's second test driver Luciano Burti was behind the wheel of an F2001 at Monza, where the Brazilian performed an extensive tyre test for Bridgestone. In total he did 90 laps, almost two race distances, setting a best time of 1m25.155s.


David Coulthard McLaren-Mercedes M 1m19.50s 61
Antonio Pizzonia Williams-BMW M 1m20.01s 103
Nick Heidfeld Sauber-Petronas B 1m20.12s 92
Alex Wurz McLaren-Mercedes M 1m20.16s 74
Jenson Button Renault M 1m20.25s 44
Marc Gene Williams-BMW M 1m20.28s 74
Takuma Sato Jordan-Honda B 1m20.46s 95
Enrique Bernoldi Arrows-Cosworth B 1m20.50s 31

M = Michelin
B = Bridgestone