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Silverstone test, day 3: McLaren one-two

McLaren occupied the top two spots on the final day of Formula 1 testing at Silverstone on Thursday with test driver Alex Wurz leading double world champion team mate Mika Hakkinen in second place

With the teams putting the finishing touches to their set-ups in preparation for July's British Grand Prix, the Ferraris had to settle for third and fourth places. As if to continue a running theme of underdogs outpacing their more illustrious team mates, number two driver Rubens Barrichello outpaced Maranello team leader Michael Schumacher for the second day in a row.

The reigning world champion finished the day just over a second behind Wurz's time and ended up in the gravel at Becketts corner after an uncharacteristic mistake. The German beached his Ferrari firmly in the gravel and escaped with nothing hurt but his pride as a very dirty F2001 was brought back to the pits.

Ricardo Zonta, another tester to go faster than his race driver team mate, finished the day an encouraging fifth for the Jordan-Honda team, despite the fact that the Brazilian complained of not being able to find his groove as well as yesterday (Wednesday). Team regular Jarno Trulli was a lowly ninth.

Behind Zonta came the Sauber of Kimi Raikonnen in sixth place. The F1 rookie spent much of the day carrying out tyre work for the Swiss team.

Olivier Panis almost mirrored his time from Wednesday, which had put him top, but today it was only good enough to put the BAR driver seventh. The Frenchman's running at the end of the day was cut short 15 minutes from the close when his gearbox failed.

Jos Verstappen completed a mammoth 93 tours of the Northamptonshire circuit in his Arrows-Asiatech and the Dutchman wound up just inside the top 10 in ninth place.

The woe continued for the Williams team. After three engine failures on Wednesday, Juan Pablo Montoya (13th) stopped out on the circuit during the morning session with technical problems. Although team mate Ralf Schumacher's FW22 stayed reliable, the Canadian GP winner wound up 12th fastest.

The Benetton team was also served up a large slice of problem pie, with Giancarlo Fisichella finishing last and four seconds off the pace for the second consecutive day. Test driver Mark Webber, whilst ahead of Fisichella albeit by only one place, was driving a 2000-spec car and spun in the morning before coming to a halt in the pitlane in the afternoon.

Both Benettons were outpaced by Narain Karthikeyan, who was making his F1 debut with the Jaguar team after driving with the Formula 3 team last year. The Indian completed 22 laps and managed to set a best time of 1m26.13s.



Alex Wurz, McLaren-Mercedes, B 1m22.08s, 46
Mika Hakkinen, McLaren-Mercedes, B 1m22.61s, 53
Rubens Barrichello, Ferrari, B 1m22.71s, 64
Michael Schumacher, Ferrari, B 1m23.14s, 71
Ricardo Zonta, Jordan-Honda, B 1m23.17s, 74
Kimi Raikkonen, Sauber-Petronas, B 1m23.43s, 50
Olivier Panis, BAR-Honda, B 1m23.81s, 54 laps
Jos Verstappen, Arrows-AMT, B 1m24.03s, 93
Jarno Trulli, Jordan-Honda, B 1m24.18s, B 80
Jacques Villeneuve, BAR-Honda, B 1m24.25s, 60
Pedro de la Rosa, Jaguar, M 1m24.30s, 90
Ralf Schumacher, Williams-BMW, M 1m24.38s, 64
Juan Pablo Montoya, Williams-BMW, M 1m24.43s, 60
Jean Alesi, Prost-Acer, M 1m25.17s, 70
Enrique Bernoldi, Arrows-AMT, B 1m25.25s, 72
Luciano Burti, Prost-Acer, M 1m25.43s, 73
Narain Karthikeyan, Jaguar, M 1m26.13s, 22
Mark Webber, Benetton-Renault (2000), M 1m26.35s, 43
Giancarlo Fisichella, Benetton-Renault, M 1m26.61s, 29

B - Bridgestone
M - Michelin

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