Valencia day 5: Panis top of new cars

The British American Racing team has run near the sharp end for much of the week and Panis has consistently been the quickest of the drivers in new cars at the Spanish circuit.

While the Frenchman finished second, team mate Jacques Villeneuve moved up to fourth by the end of the day in the second BAR004, spending time getting used to the new machine. Development driver Anthony Davidson was seventh on his last day before fellow tester Ryo Fukuda takes over on Saturday.

Joining Schumacher Jr near the front was Williams stable mate Antonio Pizzonia in third, who was one of the few to set his best time of the day in the afternoon session. Marc Gene finished fifth and caused the only red flag of the afternoon when an aborted launch control start left his FW23 at a standstill on the pit straight.

Mika Salo was the last of the 2002 runners in his Toyota TF102. The Finn was sixth and spent much of the day working on tyre development and declared himself happy with his week's work.

"It's been a long week," said Salo. "The car is getting better day by day and I'm very happy with the progress that is being made."

F1 hopeful Mark Webber put in an impressive lap of 1m16.745s in his second day with the Minardi team. The Australian, who is one of the candidates to take the second seat with the Anglo-Italian team, (click here for separate story) set a time just under a second clear of Christijan Albers in ninth and last place.

Ferrari's new test driver Luciano Burti continued testing for the Italian team at its private test track at Fiorano. The Brazilian completed 73 laps in an interim version of the F2001 with a best time of 1m23.570s.

Ralf Schumacher Williams-BMW M 1m12.990s 100 laps
Olivier Panis BAR-Honda* B 1m13.771s 79 laps
Antonio Pizzonia Williams-BMW M 1m13.897 57 laps
Jacques Villeneuve BAR-Honda* B 1m14.023s 34 laps
Marc Gene Williams-BMW M 1m14.098 59 laps
Mika Salo Toyota* M 1m14.661s 74 laps
Anthony Davidson BAR-Honda B 1m15.162s 63 laps
Mark Webber Minardi-European M 1m16.745s 34 laps
Christijan Albers Minardi-European M 1m17.678s 11 laps

M - Michelin
B - Bridgestone
* - 2002 car