Villeneuve Encouraged by New BAR

Canadian Jacques Villeneuve has praised the new Honda-powered BAR 005 after completing his first test with the new machine that was unveiled last week.

"The car is better everywhere," said Villeneuve after wrapping up a three-day test at Barcelona. "The fact that it's got more downforce and the weight distribution is lower helps mainly in the high-speed corners.

"It's very stable in high-speed corners but also much more nimble, so you can carry more speed into the slow-speed corners and when you start accelerating it doesn't snap as much as it did last year.

"I'm quite happy. We are just waiting for bits now so we can work on the set-up."

Villeneuve suffered an engine problem on his first day of work on Tuesday, but enjoyed a much better session on Wednesday. Today the Canadian was hit by an electrical problem but he was the fastest of the non-Ferrari drivers albeit three seconds off Michael Schumacher's pace.

BAR's Jenson Button was also on track this week. The Briton was also hit by some teething problems that hampered his progress, but was nonetheless encouraged by the performance of the new 005.

"I've lost quite a bit of track time over the last two days but the car is performing well when we are able to get some laps in so we just need to spend more time with it," Button said. "It's early days yet so I'm sure we'll be able to make a lot more progress in Valencia next week."