Italian GP BAR preview

Lucky Strike Reynard BAR Honda spent much of this week preparing for the upcoming Italian Grand Prix, final European round of the 2000 Formula One World Championship season, by testing at both the Monza and Varano circuits - at the same time! After an unexpectedly "under-par" performance in last weekend''s Belgian Grand Prix, the Brackley-based team redoubled its efforts for this test. Official tester, Darren Manning, divided his time between Monza, where he drove on Tuesday, and the nearby Varano circuit, where he spent the final two days working through an aerodynamic development programme. By comparison, Jacques Villeneuve, Ricardo Zonta, and development driver, Patrick Lemarie, were based at Monza the whole time. Their mission was to concentrate on refining the chassis set-up of the BAR Honda 002 for the demands of the high-speed circuit, near Milan, assisting Bridgestone with tyre evaluation, and carrying out powertrain durability work. Manning worked with the team''s engineers to test and verify further aerodynamic modifications intended to boost the competitiveness of the BAR Honda 002 chassis in the final four rounds of the World Championship battle. Steve Farrell (Chief Engineer):
"It has been a busy few days, but also very productive as far as developments for both this year and next are concerned. We have had all four of our drivers on hand for this test, the most immediate issue being to fine-tune our chassis set-up for the Italian Grand Prix. Our performance compared with the other teams here has been favourable, but we continue to pursue a better set-up. It seems clear we have the performance potential to run in the top six, but as we saw at Spa, if the chassis set-up is not quite right, we lose a significant amount of pace. It has also proved quite useful to do some running in the rain here at Monza, both Jacques and Ricardo setting competitive times in the damp conditions."
Andrew Alsworth (Test Team Manager):
"This has been a significant test for us. It is one of only four occasions when we can test at a Grand Prix venue immediately before the event, so it was important to make the most of the opportunity to hone our chassis and engine settings for Monza. It has definitely been a very busy week with the team''s resources at full stretch to run three cars at two different locations. We were also able to get in a considerable amount of wet weather running here, which may ultimately prove useful. Apparently, they hadn''t had any rain to speak of in the last three months in this area, but it seems as though we''ve had the missing three months'' worth in the last two days!"