Sauber Working Hard Despite Not Testing

The Sauber team decided to miss this week's big test at Barcelona to work on new aerodynamic components for their cars in next weekend's Brazilian Grand Prix, as they bid to avoid their nightmare at Interlagos last year.

The Swiss-based team were forced to withdraw their drivers Mika Salo and Pedro Diniz last year after the team found a problem with the two cars' front wings.

Diniz had qualified 20th for the Brazil race and Salo was last on the grid in 22nd place, but the Sauber team were not prepared to take any chances.

As a result, Sauber have taken no chances this year for drivers Kimi Raikkonen and Nick Heidfeld as they have concentrated their efforts on preparing new aerodynamic parts for the Brazil race at their Hinwil base.

Meanwhile, European Minardi - the only other team to miss the Barcelona test, treated the Malaysian Grand Prix as an extended test session as Fernando Alonso finished 13th and Tarso Marques came home 14th and last at Sepang.

The team hope to ship out three cars to Interlagos this weekend after working on reliability at their Faenza base this week.