Estoril test, day 1: Few teams turn up

Only champion team Nordic Racing, Arden Team Russia, Super Nova, Coloni and Durango travelled to the Portuguese circuit.

This year's champion Justin Wilson topped the times at the wheel of the new Lola B2/50, which will take over from the three-year-old B99/50 as next year's control chassis. The car was run by Nordic on behalf of tyre supplier Avon to work on development of next year's new rubber (For separate story click here). The rest of the teams can only run the old car until the new year.

Formula 1 driver Tomas Enge was the best of the rest for Arden Team Russia (For separate story click here), with Formula 3 graduate Gianmaria Bruni just over a tenth of a second slower. Bruni was testing for Arden, having previously run for Coloni earlier this month.

New Nordic signing Zsolt Baumgartner was outpaced by Swiss driver Joel Camathias, who was having his first test for the team. Team manager Chris Mower said: "We have got a lot of work to do. We will have a look at what we did yesterday and see how to respond, then apply it today."

Super Nova ran just one car on the first day, giving Briton Michael Bentwood his first test in an F3000 International Championship car. He has raced in the Euro F3000 series this year.

Macau F3 Grand Prix pole winner Bjorn Wirdheim was behind the wheel for the Italian Durango Formula team.


Justin Wilson*, Nordic, 1m29.420s
Tomas Enge, Arden, 1m29.506s
Gianmaria Bruni, Arden, 1m29.696s
Joel Camathias, Nordic, 1m30.878s
Zsolt Baumgartner, Nordic, 1m30.885s
Yannick Schroeder, Coloni, 1m31.118s
Bjorn Wirdheim, Durango, 1m31.131s
Jaroslav Janis, Coloni, 1m31.630s
Michael Bentwood, Super Nova, 1m31.875s
Michele Rugolo, Durango, 1m33.117s
Mirko Venturi, Durango, 1m33.293s

* Driving new Lola B2/50