Williams Dominate Action-Packed Day in Barcelona

All Formula One teams except McLaren and Minardi were in action today at the Barcelona circuit, with five of them already running their 2004 cars.

After Williams began the test on Monday working alone, up to 14 drivers were in action at the Spanish track today, which saw an action-packed session filled with incidents. The most significant of them were Mark Webber's and Timo Glock's accidents, which resulted in both men causing heavy damage to their cars.

Webber, driving last year's Jaguar R4, lost control of the car at the exit of the final corner of the track, crashing against the tyre barriers and damaging the front end of his car. Webber could only complete 10 laps in the session and finished at the bottom of the times.

German Glock, meanwhile, went off the track at the entry of the main straight on his debut with the Jordan team.

The Ford-powered EJ13 crashed backwards against the tyre barriers, ripping off the rear wing and most of the rear suspension. Glock, who was making his Formula One debut today, could complete 54 laps in what was a poor start to Jordan's 2004 testing programme.

"It was an unbelievably great experience for me to drive a Formula One car here in Barcelona," said Glock. "The power and brakes are really strong compared to anything I have driven and the aerodynamics are obviously a big step up from F3 - you can drive through corners faster and brake later.

"It's my dream to race in F1 and I hope I can drive an F1 car again soon. Testing is the first step so we'll see what happens."

The session was dominated by the Williams team and their new FW26 car, with German Ralf Schumacher outpacing Colombian teammate Juan Pablo Montoya, who today replaced test driver Marc Gene at the wheel of the second BMW-powered car.

The Williams duo was followed closely by Spaniard Fernando Alonso in the Renault R23B. The French squad today debuted their new R24 car ahead of its official launch next week. Italian Jarno Trulli was the man in charge of putting the new machine through its paces, in the morning completing a successful shakedown with runs of around three laps each.

"This was a very promising start for us," said Renault's technical director Bob Bell. "We ran reliably, and the systems on the car functioned as expected. Jarno reported the car to be well-balanced, and he was comfortable in it. The intention today was not to push, rather to build up mileage reliably and with that in mind, I think we had a very successful day."

Trulli had a promising debut with the new Renault and could complete a total of 59 laps on his way to the sixth fastest time of the day behind the two Ferraris of Rubens Barrichello and Luca Badoer, who kicked off the World Champions' preparations at Barcelona.

Brazilian Barrichello was the fastest of the two despite succumbing to a spectacular engine failure in the morning. The BAR-Honda team were in action with both Takuma Sato and Anthony Davidson, as the Brackley-based squad continued to put miles on their hybrid 005 chassis ahead of the launch of the new 006 next month.

The Sauber team were, together with Jordan, the only ones with just one car on track. Brazilian Felipe Massa drove the new Petronas-powered C23, and posted the ninth fastest time of the day ahead of compatriots Ricardo Zonta and Cristiano da Matta.

"It was not quite an easy day," said Massa. "In the morning we had to do some software adjustments which cost us valuable time. Then we had to change the engine and therefore there was not much time left for me to be out at the track. Nevertheless I'm confident with regard to tomorrow as we found a good set-up now."

Da Matta had a poor session with the new Toyota TF104, which broke down in the morning and the Brazilian could only complete 15 laps while Zonta, in the TF103B car, covered 83.

Jaguar had a poor day, with Webber's teammate Christian Klien finishing just ahead of the Australian in the new R5 chassis. Klien covered 41 laps, but finished more than four seconds off the pace.

Testing at Barcelona continues tomorrow.

Today's times:

Pos Driver Team-Engine Tyres Time Laps 1. R.Schumacher Williams-BMW (M) 1:15.710 80 2. Montoya Williams-BMW (M) 1:15.822 85 3. Alonso Renault (M) 1:15.896 88 4. Barrichello Ferrari (B) 1:15.994 60 5. Badoer Ferrari (B) 1:16.989 59 6. Trulli Renault (M) 1:17.046 59 7. Sato BAR-Honda (M) 1:17.082 90 8. Davidson BAR-Honda (M) 1:17.309 83 9. Massa Sauber-Petronas (B) 1:17.776 61 10. Zonta Toyota (M) 1:17.965 83 11. da Matta Toyota (M) 1:18.101 15 12. Glock Jordan-Ford (B) 1:19.625 54 13. Klien Jaguar-Cosworth (M) 1:19.781 41 14. Webber Jaguar-Cosworth (M) 1:20.384 10 All Timing Unofficial

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