Ferrari and Sauber Begin Tyre Testing at Jerez

World Champions Ferrari and Swiss team Sauber began testing today at the Jerez circuit in Spain, with Italian Luca Badoer for Ferrari and German Nick Heidfeld for Sauber.

The two teams, who are scheduled to run at the track for the next three days, enjoyed sunny weather and cool temperatures, and both concentrated on tyre testing work for Japanese supplier Bridgestone, as well as car development work for 2003.

Badoer ran with two F2002 chassis, accumulating a total of 106 laps with a best time of 1:20.538 - some two seconds slower than the fastest 2002 testing time, set earlier this year by McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen.

Heidfeld ran a total of 45 laps with a best time of 1:22.339 and was satisfied with the day's work. "It has been another good day of work and we managed to gather interesting data for our working program," he said. "At the end of the session, I was pushing a little bit to test the limit, and lost the car in the last run."

"Today we focused on conducting further detailed work on the gearbox as well as on aerodynamic development," Giampaolo Dall'Ara, Sauber's head of test team said. "The test went well although we lost a little bit of time when we decided to do a complete inspection of the gearbox internals. We will continue the aerodynamic program tomorrow with Nick at the wheel. We will also be assessing brake systems. Even though the car suffered a little damage when it went off in the last run, we will be ready for tomorrow".