Ferrari Head for Snow as Testing Gears Up

The first Formula One tests of 2001 start in southern Spain on Monday but world champion Michael Schumacher and his Ferrari teammates will be chilling out on the ski slopes.

While Benetton and Williams make sure their cars are the first in action at Jerez, Schumacher is preparing to meet the media in the ski resort of Madonna di Campiglio in the Italian Dolomites on Thursday.

His Brazilian teammate Rubens Barrichello and Ferrari sporting director Jean Todt, who has just had a street named in his honour in the town of his birth in central France, will face the questions later in the week.

According to Italian reporters, the Ferrari men will also find time to take part in a giant slalom, do some snowboarding and race karts on a frozen track.

The chassis of the 2001 Ferrari is due to be completed at Maranello during the week while the new V10 engine is being tested for endurance.

Apart from a brief outing at Mugello in Italy last November after he returned to Europe with his third world title, Schumacher has not driven a Formula One car in earnest since the end of the season.

But the German is now rested and recovered from surgery he had in December on the leg he broke at Silverstone in July 1999 and is expected to test later in the month.

Ferrari are taking just one car to Jerez from January 15 to 17, for Italian test driver Luca Badoer to use.

Two cars, with a version of the new engine, will then be available for Barcelona from January 22-25, with Schumacher and Barrichello possibly testing together.

Sauber's Descent

While the champions are up in the mountains, the Ferrari-engined Sauber team will be descending on Maranello from Switzerland to test their new C19 car at Ferrari's Fiorano track on Wednesday and Thursday.

They will then also go to Jerez on the 15th.

McLaren, runners-up in a season in which they and Ferrari won every race, are matching their rivals in leaving the test tracks to 2000's also-rans next week.

Their first appearance of 2001 will be in Valencia from January 15-17, probably with the old MP4/15 chassis coupled with a new Mercedes V10 engine and rear end.

Finland's Mika Hakkinen, who has not been in a racing car since the season-ending Malaysian Grand Prix, will return from "paternity leave".

The team will stay in Spain into February, moving from Valencia to Barcelona, to Jerez - where the new MP4/16 car is expected to be unveiled - and then back to Valencia.

Williams and Benetton, third and fourth last season respectively, will have their cars ready to roll out of the garages in Jerez on Monday morning.

Williams plan provisionally to launch the FW23 in Barcelona on January 25 but Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya will concentrate mostly on testing the Michelin tyres in last season's car with the old BMW engine.

The team, like Honda-powered rivals BAR, also have plans to test at South Africa's Kyalami circuit in February.

Italian Giancarlo Fisichella will get back in his Benetton on Monday for the first time since he underwent minor knee surgery on December 18.

"The knee is still a little sore where they operated but I think it is now 90 percent recovered," he told the Gazzetta dello Sport newspaper.