Pizzonia Makes Fast Return at Jerez

Brazilian Antonio Pizzonia made a return to a Formula One car today, as he joined the Williams team in testing at the Spanish Jerez circuit.

Williams and Toyota have been running at Jerez this week, in preparations for the final round of the 2003 season in Japan. Today was Toyota's fourth and final day of testing, whereas Williams have been running for three days and will wrap up testing tomorrow, again with Pizzonia.

The Brazilian, who was ditched by Jaguar Racing earlier in the season and made a return to his former testing team, set the fastest time of the day, benefitting from mild conditions to also set the fastest time of the week. He ran a total of 88 laps, with a best time of 1:18.818.

"We had another productive day today with Marc Gene and Antonio Pizzonia running the FW25s," said Tim Newton, Williams test team Manager. "Marc completed a race distance as well as doing some long stints on track testing tyres and set up configurations for Suzuka. After several months out of the cockpit, Antonio spent the morning familiarising himself with the car before spending the rest of the session testing various set up options for Japan."

Another Brazilian at Jerez today was Ricardo Zonta, carrying out testing duties for Toyota. He ran a total of 110 laps with a best time of 1:19.300 - just two hundredths of a second ahead of Williams test driver Marc Gene, who ran a total of 123 laps.

"We did a lot of work today specifically in preparation for next week's Japanese GP in Suzuka," Zonta commented. "We completed a lot of laps, working on set-up of the car, Michelin tyre testing, as well as running the new spec engine, which we will use in Suzuka. It was a very good day and I think we can be confident for next week's race."

Today's times:

Pos Driver Team-Engine Time Laps 1. Pizzonia Williams-BMW (M) 1:18.818 88 2. Zonta Toyota (M) 1:19.300 110 3. Gene Williams-BMW (M) 1:19.322 123 All Timing Unofficial

Visit Atlas F1's Testing Center for further information