Testing kicks off at Imola with Melo on top

Only the Kid Jensen Racing squad, which has yet to announce it's driver line-up for this year, was missing from the 14 teams that will take to the grid for the season-opening race in Brazil on March 31. Today is the first of a two-day test and the times show that competition is going to be as tight as ever with all 25 cars running today covered by 2.673secs.

Melo, who moves to Durango this year after losing his seat with Petrobras to Italian F3000 champion Ricardo Sperafico, set the fastest time of the day during the afternoon session and lapped the San Marino Grand Prix circuit 0.091secs ahead of Patrick Freisacher driving for the Red Bull Junior Team.

Third place was taken by Minardi Formula 1 driver Fernando Alonso in a European Minardi car. The 19-year-old Spaniard won the final F3000 race of 2000 at Spa and graduates to F1 this year, but was on hand to shakedown the Junior team's cars for David Saelens and Andrea Piccini. Alonso posted the fastest times set in both cars and as a result ended the day in third and sixth place.

Surprise Super Nova signing Mario Haberfeld set the fourth fastest time, while team mate and Benetton test driver Mark Webber finished the day a lowly ninth.

"It was great to get back in an F3000 car," said Webber, "because I haven't driven one since last August. Although we had a small glitch this morning which cost us some running time, I got used to the feel of the car in the afternoon and we did some good running."

Tomas Enge, who won at Hockenheim with the McLaren Junior team last year, moves to Nordic for 2001 to join Justin Wilson and finished fifth, two places ahead of his team mate.

British Formula 3 Champion Antonio Pizzonia had his second run in the Petrobras Lola after running with the Norfolk-based team at Jerez in November. The Brazilian spent much of the morning session learning the Imola track and finished the day in eighth place.

"At the beginning I was a little bit lost because I couldn't really remember the car and how to drive it," said Pizzonia. "I think I could have improved a little on my times, but on my new tyres I had heavy traffic."

Sebastien Bourdais, who moves to the DAMS squad this year after driving for the Prost Junior Team in 2001, rounded out the top ten just ahead of Ricardo Sperafico's twin brother Rodrigo. Prost's Junior squad ran it's recently confirmed driver pairing of Nicolas Filiberti and Gabrielle Varano who finished 19th and 24th respectively.

Darren Manning continues with the Arden team this year as well as fitting in his BAR testing duties. The 1999 Macau F3 race winner finished 13th quickest, ten places ahead of Russian team mate Viktor Maslov.

Testing continues on Thursday.


Jaime Melo, Durango Formula, 1m38.764s
Patrick Freisacher, Red Bull Junior Team, 1m38.855s
Fernando Alonso (David Saelens' car), European Minardi Junior, 1m38.901s
Mario Haberfeld, Super Nova, 1m38.928s
Tomas Enge, Nordic, 1m38.947s
Fernando Alonso (Andrea Piccini's car), European Minardi Junior, 1m38.971s
Justin Wilson, Nordic, 1m39.145s
Antonio Pizzonia, Petrobras, 1m39.158s
Mark Webber, Super Nova, 1m39.266s
Sebastien Bourdais, DAMS, 1m39.454s
Rodrigo Sperafico, Coloni, 1m39.616s
Ricardo Sperafico, Petrobras, 1m39.699s
Darren Manning, Arden, 1m39.775s
Antonio Garcia, Red Bull Junior Team, 1m39.843s
Fabrizio Gollin, Coloni, 1m39.938s
Joel Camathias, KTR, 1m40.394s
Ananda Mikola, Astromega, 1m40.560s
Bas Leinders, KTR, 1m40.752s
Nicolas Filliberti, Prost Junior Team, 1m40.781s
Giorgio Pantano, Astromega, 1m40.796s
Derek Hill, DAMS, 1m40.858s
Gabriele Lancieri, Durango Formula, 1m40.895s
Viktor Maslov, Arden, 1m40.995s
Gabriele Varano, Prost Junior Team, 1m41.082s
Christian Murchison, Fortec, 1m41.437s