Feature: Schumacher to Stay Home as Testing Resumes

Formula One's new faces begin the countdown to the 2003 season on Tuesday as Ferrari's five times World Champion Michael Schumacher settles in for an extended winter break.

Schumacher, multiple record-breaker in 2002, has been relaxing at home with his family since the season ended on October 13 and the German intends to stay away from the racetrack until well into the New Year.

"He probably won't be in the car again until mid January," said his spokeswoman Sabine Kehm as Ferrari prepared to hit the track in Barcelona on Tuesday when the six-week post season testing ban ends.

A Ferrari spokesman said Italian test driver Luca Badoer would kick off tyre testing in Barcelona for Formula One's dominant team with Brazilian Luciano Burti working on components at Mugello in Italy from Wednesday.

Jordan, with a Ford Cosworth engine replacing their 2002 Honda power plant next season, will also be sitting out testing until they have their new EJ13 car ready in January. The new season starts in Australia on March 9 with revamped qualifying rules and a new system awarding points to the top eight finishers.

"The Ford Cosworth engine is comprehensively different from the Honda we used this year, so there will have to be an entirely new chassis and a new gearbox before we can run it," said Jordan's design director Henri Durand.

"When you have a radically different package, it's irrelevant and impractical to build an interim car."

Brazilian Debutant

Toyota, with an all-new line-up of Brazilian debutant Cristiano da Matta and France's Olivier Panis, will join Ferrari in Barcelona along with Jaguar and British American Racing.

Da Matta, the newly-crowned CART champion, will be given plenty of time in this year's TF102 to get him up to speed as quickly as possible while Panis, making his Toyota debut after leaving BAR, will be in a hybrid TF102B. The Brazilian will then head for Toyota's southern French test track of Le Castellet on December 2 for a week in the more recent development car.

Jaguar's new pairing of Australian Mark Webber and Antonio Pizzonia, another Brazilian debutant, will get down to serious work after replacing Briton Eddie Irvine and Spaniard Pedro de la Rosa at the Ford-owned team. Both will be testing Cosworth's new 90 degree V10 engine ahead of the launch of the new R4 on January 13.

BAR will rely on Briton Anthony Davidson to test 'under the skin' systems such as transmission and electronic components until Briton Jenson Button can join the team when his contract with Renault expires at the end of the year.

Renault, with Italian Jarno Trulli at the wheel, are in Valencia with a hybrid car combining the new R23's engine and gearbox inside the aerodynamic package of last season's R202. McLaren, Williams, Sauber and Minardi will also be in Valencia this week.

McLaren boast a full complement, with Finland's Kimi Raikkonen, Briton David Coulthard and Austrian test driver Alex Wurz all due on track this week. At Williams, Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya returns from his honeymoon to test with Spaniard Marc Gene and young Italians Giorgio Pantano and Vitantonio Liuzzi.

The BMW-powered team need to replace Pizzonia, their tester last season, and are trying out a number of new faces.

Minardi, hoping to announce a Cosworth engine deal soon, have Russian tester Sergei Zlobin and French hopeful Franck Montagny in a 2001 PS01 car with a 2002 gearbox powered by their own Ford-based European V10 engines.