Wurz on Top, Renault Shine at Valencia

Austrian Alexander Wurz continued to dominate on the second day of testing at the Ricardo Tormo circuit in Valencia, Spain.

McLaren's test driver, again at the wheel of the MP4-19B car, finished only two tenths of a second off the unofficial track record held by teammate Kimi Raikkonen, who joined the test to replace Pedro de la Rosa in the new MP4-20. The Finn was seventh quickest.

Fernando Alonso and Giancarlo Fisichella had a strong day for the Renault team, who had two of the new R25s on track. Alonso, who suffered an engine failure in the morning, was the fastest of the drivers in 2005 cars, and also the only one, together with Wurz, to lap in less than 70 seconds.

"Our main priority today was to complete long distance running to put mileage on both chassis and although mechanical incidents perturbed our programme, we nevertheless completed over 100 laps with Fernando and 64 with Giancarlo," said Renault's chief test engineer Christian Silk.

"The first runs of chassis 03 have proceeded well, and the drivers and their engineering teams have made good progress in their exploration of set-ups with the R25, continuing where they left off last week."

Williams driver Nick Heidfeld was fourth quickest in the FW27, outpacing teammate Mark Webber as both men continued putting miles in the new car, which was unveiled on Monday. The Williams pair were split in the timesheets by the BAR-Honda 007 of Takuma Sato.

The BAR team had four drivers in action today, with Sato being joined by test driver Anthony Davidson, in another 007, and young Briton James Rossiter and South African Alan van der Merwe, who were back to F1 testing at the wheel of last year's 006 car.

Olivier Panis and Ralf Schumacher continued testing Toyota's new TF105, finishing close behind the rest of the 2005 cars. Schumacher caused two of the seven red flags seen today at the Spanish track.

Brazilian Rubens Barrichello was only 10th quickest in the revised F2004M with which Ferrari plan to start the season, while Spaniard Marc Gene posted the 12th fastest time of the day in the F2004.

Testing will continue tomorrow, when World Champion Michael Schumacher is scheduled to join.

Today's times:

Pos Driver Team-Engine Tyres Time Laps 1. Wurz McLaren-Mercedes (M) 1:09.203 131 2. Alonso Renault (M) 1:09.986 129 3. Fisichella Renault (M) 1:10.133 64 4. Heidfeld Williams-BMW (M) 1:10.354 92 5. Sato BAR-Honda (M) 1:10.643 95 6. Webber Williams-BMW (M) 1:10.656 96 7. Raikkonen McLaren-Mercedes (M) 1:10.696 57 8. Panis Toyota (M) 1:10.779 48 9. R.Schumacher Toyota (M) 1:10.853 72 10. Barrichello Ferrari (B) 1:11.372 88 11. Davidson BAR-Honda (M) 1:11.395 140 12. Gene Ferrari (B) 1:12.751 51 13. Rossiter BAR-Honda (M) 1:13.733 38 14. van der Merwe BAR-Honda (M) 1:15.078 45 All Timing Unofficial

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