FERRARI: - BADOER CRASHES AT BARCELONA- (1st-170 points)
Luca Badoer crashed his Ferrari F2000 heavily at Barcelona last Sunday during testing, the accident due to a rear suspension failure. Taken to the local hospital, he has since been flown back home and although the doctors are satisfied with his progress, he will be out of action for two weeks and will have to wear a neck support. Michael Schumacher began testing an F2000 for three days at Barcelona on Monday, this being his return to the cockpit for the first time since last year's Malaysian GP. He reported that he was very happy with the feel of the car in which he was
tire testing as well as evaluating some components for this season's new car. Michael, who completed more than 80 laps for a 1m 21.33s best - second fastest on the day - said; "it was good to be back - and fantastic to have lots of different
tires to evaluate. The car is improved, but I am impatient to try the new one!" The new 2001 Ferrari will be unveiled at Fiorano on Monday (29 January) and while Rubens Barrichello will be back at Barcelona next week for test runs with the old F2000, Michael will remain in Italy to undertake the first test of the new car at Fiorano on either 31 January or 1 February. Ferrari is also pressing on with the completion of the second car in order to devote one chassis to performance testing and the second to reliability runs.
McLAREN: COULTHARD AT BARCELONA - (2nd-152 points)
David Coulthard took over from Mika Hakkinen as Alexander Wurz' s testing partner for the McLaren-Mercedes team at Barcelona this week, both men using MP4/15-K development cars. On Monday Coulthard set the pace with a 1m 20.38s, 0.2sec quicker than Wurz, as both McLaren drivers shared out engine development and
tire testing programs between them. Coulthard was again quickest on Tuesday in 1m 21.23s with Wurz managing a 1m 22.67s, then on Wednesday the Scot had to take second place overall to Michael Schumacher's Ferrari with a 1m 21.69s, 0.1sec quicker than Wurz. The performance of the new Mercedes F0110-K engine is "very promising indeed" according to a team insider. The all-new McLaren-Mercedes MP4/16 is due to be unveiled at the Valencia circuit on Wednesday 7 February.
WILLIAMS: WORKING ON NEW FW23 - (3rd-36 points)
There was no major testing this week for the BMW Williams team which is working flat-out to prepare the first of its new FW23 challengers which is scheduled to be officially unveiled at Silverstone tomorrow (Saturday). The car will be given a preliminary shakedown by Ralf Schumacher in front of the media after which it will be flown down to Barcelona in time for Schumacher to test further next Monday/Tuesday. Williams will also have an FW22B development car staying on at Barcelona next week, while work is continuing apace in an effort to complete the second FW23 in time for hot weather tests at Johannesburg's Kyalami circuit from 8-13 February. The team will then have one more test, either at Silverstone or Barcelona, before the cars are packed up ready to be freighted to Melbourne. Marc Gene started running with the FW22B yesterday (Thursday), posting a best of 1m 22.83s despite his car needing an engine change during the course of the day.
BENETTON: TESTING AT SILVERSTONE - (4th-20 points)
The Benetton-Renault Sport team began testing on the national circuit at Silverstone on Wednesday where Giancarlo Fisichella was continuing development of the new 111-degree Renault RS21 V10 engine and the B201 gearbox set-up in preparation for first tests of the B201 proper at Barcelona next week. Jenson Button, meanwhile, concentrated on engine and chassis control system testing with the B200. No times were issued. The new B201 will be officially unveiled in Venice on 6 February. The team continued this low-key
program on Thursday.
BAR: PANIS SETS THURSDAY PACE- (5th-20 points)
Olivier Panis set fastest time on Thursday at Barcelona with the BAR 002 before switching to the new 03 which will officially be launched today (Friday) in London. After the launch Jacques Villeneuve will fly to Barcelona to test the new car on Saturday and the team will return for more testing at the Circuit de Catalunya at the end of next week. Yesterday Darren Manning also did some testing in the BAR 002.
JORDAN: INTENSIVE PROGRAM IN SPAIN - (6th-17 points)
The Jordan-Honda team began an intensive test program on Monday at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya where Heinz-Harald Frentzen took the wheel of the new EJ-11 challenger, working on engine vibration tests in conjunction with Honda. The German driver completed 23 laps for a best time of 1m 22.20s, continuing the following day to carry out engine development and cooling work. After completing a total of 35 laps (best 1m 21.76s) he commented; "today we tried different configurations for cooling the Honda engine to evaluate temperature and performance changes." On Wednesday Jarno Trulli took over the car, the Italian running 10 lap stints to complete a total of 34 laps. In addition to reliability testing and cooling systems development, he also focused on power steering development and ended up with a best time of 1m 22.58s. On Thursday Trulli continued to post a best of 1m 21.89s. Test team manager Tim Edwards said: "The car ran smoothly all day without any problems. We focused on long distance running, putting the required 450km on the Melbourne specification engine. Both Honda and ourselves were pleased with how the car performed today."
ARROWS: HARD WORK IN BARCELONA - (7th-7 points)
Electronic problems thwarted Pedro de La Rosa's progress when the Arrows team began testing at Barcelona on Sunday with the new AMT-engined A21 development car, but on Monday things went much better. The Spaniard completed 58 laps for a third fastest best of 1m 21.09s, the team concentrating on
tire testing in addition to exhaust and engine mapping work. On Tuesday de la Rosa continued the
tire development program in windy weather with higher ambient temperatures. He managed a 1m 21.9s best which was 0.3sec slower than Michael Schumacher's Ferrari. On Wednesday Jos Verstappen took over the test
program, concentrating on validating de la Rosa's data gathered over the previous couple of days. The majority of Jos's 61 laps were completed in long runs in order to come closer to simulating race conditions for the Bridgestone engineers. His best time was a 1m 22.4s. Verstappen continued on Thursday to set a 1m 21.71s best in the A21B.
SAUBER: TWO NEW CARS READY - (8th - 6 points)
After officially unveiling its new C20 challenger on Wednesday in Switzerland, the Sauber-Petronas team will become the first team to test two of its 2001 cars at the same time when they run at Barcelona from today (Friday) until Sunday. They will be back at Barcelona from 1-3 February after which much of the pre-season testing is likely to take place at Fiorano, weather conditions permitting. Designer Sergio Rinland has left the team, reportedly for personal reasons, and Peter Sauber has not yet nominated a test driver. "Our two young drivers are so hot at the moment that they want to to all the testing," he said in reference to Nick Heidfeld and Kimi
Raikkonen.
JAGUAR: SILVERSTONE IN THE RAIN - (9th-4 points)
After last week's accident with the new R2 challenger at Valencia, the Jaguar team was back at Silverstone on Monday where Eddie Irvine drove the repaired 2001 car during the course of a promotional day filming a television commercial. Apart from a damaged nose cone, front suspension and steering rack, the R2 survived intact from his Spanish accident. Wet conditions at Silverstone prevented any representative times being set. Former F1 driver Christian Danner also had an outing in one of last year's Jaguar R1s, spinning and lightly damaging this machine. The Jaguar team will continue its full test
program at Barcelona from 27-31 January.
MINARDI: NO FIRM NEWS YET - (10th-0 points)
Giancarlo Minardi refuses to issue a press release concerning the future of his team until the contract has been signed and he says there are still some details to tie up. The first monocoque of the 2001 car has been delivered to the factory and he is feeling in confident mood.
PROST: MAZZACANE TRIES NEW CAR- (11th- 0 points)
Prost Grand Prix was in Barcelona on Monday and Tuesday with Jean Alesi driving on the first day before handing over the new AP04 to Gaston Mazzacane on the second day. They are both very happy with the new car which has now been sent back to the factory where it will be subjected to a lot of tests. Prost will have a lot of new developments to try when testing resumes and they hope to have the second chassis ready for the second day of the Estoril test which begins on February 7.
Source: FIA
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