Busy day two at Silverstone

The second day of testing at Silverstone was extremely busy and BAR even ran three cars all day. Every driver did over half a Grand Prix distance with Irvine, Heidfeld and Frentzen completing well over 350km each.

Jenson Button was ultimately the fastest driver for the second day running, with Ralf Schumacher close behind and Eddie Irvine again just shy of the fastest time. Minardi joined the session running a chassis for Alex Yoong, and Jaguar, Sauber and Arrows continued their testing programmes from yesterday with the same drivers. Weather conditions again were ideal with bright sun and a warm track. Today the teams were mostly doing tyre tests, aerodynamic setups and traction control testing.

Giancarlo Fisichella.

Photo by Mark Gledhill.

Sauber again ran with Nick Heidfeld, who did long stints in the car followed by long stints out of it while extensive work was being done. He worked on aerodynamic settings and tyre tests, and also did some practice starts. The car did not suffer any problems.

Jordan tested with both race drivers Takuma Sato and Giancarlo Fisichella, doing suspension geometries plus set up work with both cars. Fisichella suffered a mechanical problem in the afternoon but otherwise there were no dramas.

BAR ran an impressive three chassis, one each for race drivers Olivier Panis and Jacques Villeneuve and one for regular test driver Anthony Davidson. At one point in the morning the only cars on the track were all three BARs. Panis suffered a gearbox problem and Villeneuve suffered an engine problem during the morning, but otherwise the team suffered a trouble-free day as they worked on reliability, set-up and practice starts.

Jacques Villeneuve.

Photo by Mark Gledhill.

Renault continued testing with Jenson Button who was the fastest driver of all today. He completed 75 laps working on tyre testing, and the only problem encountered was a loss of power during the morning. The team were running a device which caused Jenson to coast to and from the garage at the start and end of every run.

Jaguar were present with Eddie Irvine again behind the wheel. He completed over a Grand Prix distance and set the third fastest time. His car was noticably unstable around the circuit and we was pushing very hard to exert the maximum from it.

Arrows continued their three-day programme by working mainly on pitstops. The team practiced a rear-wing change, a front-wing change and several fuel stops. They also did some practice starts and also some reliability tests.

Alex Yoong.

Photo by Mark Gledhill.

Minardi made their first appearance at a Silverstone test session for nearly two years with Alex Yoong behing the wheel. The Malaysian driver completed 43 laps during the morning session but suffered an accident at Stowe just before the lunch break damaging the front wing of his car. The car was repaired just before the end of the day allowing it to be shook down in preparation for Mark Webber who will take over tomorrow.

Testing will resume at 10pm tomorrow at the Northamptonshire circuit for the third and final day of this session.