Montoya Leads the Way at Valencia

Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya set a blistering pace with his Williams on the second day of testing at the Valencia circuit in Spain.

The Williams driver set a quickest time of 1:10.794, around three tenths of a second slower than the track record, held by McLaren's David Coulthard. Williams, working on testing the new BMW P83 engine and developing various components intended for the new FW25, continued with two drivers, with Spaniard Marc Gene setting the fourth fastest lap.

"We had sunshine in the morning followed by an overcast afternoon and less wind than yesterday," said Williams's test team manager Tim Newton. "The focus of today's test was dominated by tyre testing with Michelin alongside a routine testing program of chassis and systems work.

"Juan was driving a FW24 03 and Marc was putting some more useful mileage on the clock of the BMW P83 in a FW24D 01. A general testing day that accumulated a total mileage of 632km with which we were very pleased."

McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen was second quickest with the MP4-17D, the Finn outpacing Austrian Alexander Wurz and Gary Paffett, who was back behind the wheel of a McLaren following his test with the Woking-based outfit at the end of last year. The Briton was standing in for Scot David Coulthard, who was forced out of testing due to a stomach bug.

German Heinz-Harald Frentzen finished fifth with the Sauber C22, as the Swiss squad put more miles on the new Petronas-powered machine.

"We were relieved to find better weather conditions in the morning, with none of the heavy gusts of wind that interrupted our program yesterday," said Sauber's head of vehicle engineering Jacky Eeckelaert. "As a result of this, we were able to continue our aerodynamic testing this morning with satisfactory results.

"During the lunch hour, the engine was changed as it had reached its mileage limit. Heinz-Harald Frentzen was then able to resume driving later in the afternoon. Unfortunately it started raining in the second part of the afternoon, so that we could not start the tyre testing program with Bridgestone."

Testing at Valencia will resume tomorrow.

Today's times:

Pos Driver Team-Engine Tyres Time Laps 1. Montoya Williams-BMW (M) 1:10.794 81 2. Raikkonen McLaren-Mercedes (M) 1:11.111 42 3. Wurz McLaren-Mercedes (M) 1:11.911 94 4. Gene Williams-BMW (M) 1:12.331 74 5. Frentzen Sauber-Petronas (B) 1:12.991 61 6. Paffett McLaren-Mercedes (M) 1:14.491 35 All Timing Unofficial

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