Benetton Silverstone testingn 2001-09-18

The Mild Seven Benetton Renault Sport team were at Silverstone on Tuesday for the first day of a three day test there, ahead of flying to Indianapolis for the United States Grand Prix.

Jenson Button was on hand in the B201 alongside the team's test-driver Mark Webber, and Technical Director Mike Gascoyne explained afterwards that the team had made progress, despite difficult weather conditions.

"We experienced a typical Silverstone day with damp weather conditions which made testing difficult," said Gascoyne.

"However, with Mark we carried out a programme of launch control development for wet weather together with other electronic development aid for next year.

"Jenson was running with the B-spec engine that we had in qualifying during the Italian Grand Prix. He completed 29 laps before stopping with a minor engine problem.

"We conducted several evaluations of wet weather tyres but the conditions made meaningful comparison difficult, but overall we had as productive a day as you can have under these weather conditions," he added. <pre> Unofficial times from Silverstone:

Pos Driver Team Time 1 Jean Alesi Jordan 1m34.03s 2 Alexander Wurz McLaren 1m34.10s 3 Jenson Button Mild Seven Benetton Renault Sport 1m34.67s 4 Eddie Irvine Jaguar 1m34.82s 5 Mark Webber Mild Seven Benetton Renault Sport 1m34.96s 6 Olivier Panis BAR 1m35.09s 7 Pedro de la Rosa Jaguar 1m35.27s 8 Narain Karthikeyan Jordan 1m36.02s

-Benetton-