Troubled Day for BAR Drivers

The British American Racing team have a lot of work ahead of them in order to recover from a troubled Friday practice for the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Canadian Jacques Villeneuve made a costly mistake when he spun off the track inthe second session, the gravel trap causing heavy damage to his BAR's floor. His mechanics were forced to replace the part, losing a lot a valuable time, and Villeneuve finished the session down in 12th place.

"Today got off to a good start and we were going well on old tyres considering the track conditions," he said. "It was quite slippery as is usually the case on a Friday here but generally we were improving throughout the session. Then, I made a mistake by braking late into turn 4 and ended up spinning off.

"The problem with the gravel traps here is that they're more like 'rock' traps and can cause a lot of damage to the car, as we saw. We had to replace the floor and the bargeboards and I lost over 30 minutes in the second session, so I wasn't able to work with the tyres very much at all.

"We haven't made enough progress today and we have a lot of work to do with the data now to prepare us for tomorrow's session."

Frenchman Olivier Panis was also hit by problems, his car suffering a gearbox oil leak before he was further hampered by trouble with his throttle. Panis ended up 14th.

"Today didn't go at all how we expected," Panis admitted. "Things had been looking quite good in the morning session but this afternoon I had a gearbox oil leak and a problem with the throttle. This meant that I spent more time in the garage than on the track so we were unable to make any further progress.

"All I can do now is work with the engineers to find a solution that will help us to achieve the maximum preparation for qualifying. I'm still feeling positive that we can turn things around but we have a lot of work ahead this afternoon."