Button takes over at Barcelona

Testing continued apace at the Circuit de Catalunya on April 7th, where BAR's Jenson Button set the best time of the day of the 16 drivers on duty at the Spanish track. Button clocked 1:14.247 to top the time sheet, a new lap record, and his teammate Takuma Sato was third overall.

Jenson Button.

Photo by xpb.cc.

The pair continued with BAR's schedule of aerodynamics, suspension and tyres. Tester Enrique Bernoldi took over from Sato late in the day for a few laps of set up work and rounded off the times in 16th.

Toyota's Jarno Trulli was second fastest, seven tenths down on Button, and team tester Ricardo Zonta was eighth. Toyota decided to curtail its test due to bad weather forecast for tomorrow, so to save test days with the 30 day agreement. The two days work focused on set up, tyres, suspension and software between the drivers.

McLaren tester Alex Wurz, in the MP4-19B, was fourth and Kimi Raikkonen, in the MP4-20, was 10th. Both encountered problems, Wurz a hydraulic leak and Raikkonen a clutch issue, but mostly completed their day's tyre work.

Rubens Barrichello was the quicker of the two Ferraris present, fifth, and team test driver Luca Badoer was seventh. Barrichello gave the F2005 its first outing at this circuit and Badoer drove the F2004M; both worked on tyres. Badoer will continue tomorrow while Michael Schumacher is scheduled to take over the F2005 from Barrichello.

Fernando Alonso headed the pair of Renault race drivers at work in sixth, with Giancarlo Fisichella 12th to conclude the team's test week. Alonso had another trouble free day but Fisichella went out with a bang when he crashed at turn three early in the afternoon. He was unharmed and will be back behind the wheel at Paul Ricard in France next week.

David Coulthard continued as the sole Red Bull on track and was ninth quickest. Williams had Nick Heidfeld 11th and Mark Webber and tester Antonio Pizzonia were 13th and 14th respectively. Webber suffered from pain in his ribs and quit at midday as a precautionary measure. Pizzonia joined Heidfeld in the afternoon and they worked on tyres and set up.

Felipe Massa took over a day early from Jacques Villeneuve at Sauber and was 15th on the time sheet. As the weather forecast is rain for tomorrow, the team reportedly wanted Massa in the car in order to compare lap times in the dry after Villeneuve's times were inconsistent yesterday. Race engineer Giampaolo Dall'Ara said today was an improvement but there is more work to do.