Valencia 1: Williams on top
Juan Pablo Montoya set the pace as five Michelin-shod teams began a multi-day test at Valencia. The next two quickest drivers were his team-mates Ralf Schumacher and Marc Gene
Montoya completed an apparently trouble-free 69 laps, but Schumacher ran into a few niggles and only completed 37 laps. Gene meanwhile was entrusted with the new 2004-spec 'long-life' engine and his carefully-driven 56 laps included an encouraging 1m11.224s time - only just over a second slower than Montoya.
Alex Wurz was best of the rest. The Austrian was at the wheel of a 2003 MP4-17D and his work centred round comparison testing for the new MP4-19 driven by David Coulthard.
Franck Montagny and Jarno Trulli both put in a lot of laps for Renault, with the French driver being slightly the quicker. Engine and set-up work were on their agenda.
Jaguar had regular Mark Webber, plus hopefuls Christian Klien and Townsend Bell on-hand. Webber was quickest, but spectating Jaguar bigwigs Tony Purnell and Wolfgang Reitzle will have been impressed by the youngsters. Klien was only just over a tenth of a second slower than Webber on his first ever Formula 1 appearance. Bell, who has tested for BAR before, wasn't too shabby either, 0.454s off Webber's pace.
Coulthard completed 47 laps - not a bad tally for a brand new car and mighty impressive in comparison to the two laps achieved by the unreliable, unraced, MP4-18 on its first day out. The new car did grind to a halt on three occasions with apparently engine-related problems, but returned to the fray and put in a respectable time just under two seconds off Montoya's best.
"It's been positive," said Coulthard. "The car's very responsive to changes."
Ryan Briscoe completed the runners, tyre-testing for Toyota.
Juan Pablo Montoya Williams-BMW M 1m10.081s 69
Ralf Schumacher Williams-BMW M 1m10.718s 37
Marc Gene Williams-BMW M 1m11.224s 56
Alexander Wurz McLaren-Mercedes M 1m11.299s 53
Franck Montagny Renault M 1m11.873s 84
Mark Webber Jaguar M 1m11.876s 37
Jarno Trulli Renault M 1m11.950s 89
Christian Klien Jaguar M 1m11.955s 54
David Coulthard McLaren-Mercedes* M 1m12.035s 47
Townsend Bell Jaguar M 1m12.330s 63
Ryan Briscoe Toyota M 1m12.660s 70
* = 2004 car
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