Monaco GP BAR Thursday notes

MONACO, MONTE CARLO, June 1, 2000 - Lucky Strike Reynard BAR Honda went for a conservative, but productive, start to the first day of practice for this weekend''s Monaco Grand Prix. With the challenge of competing on one of the trickiest street circuits in the world lying ahead of them, the team''s engineers elected to keep drivers Jacques Villeneuve and Ricardo Zonta on the track for as long as possible during today''s two one-hour sessions. Zonta''s effort was creditable for the fact he has never competed on the Monaco circuit, the International Formula 3000 Championship not visiting the Principality in his title-winning 1997 season. JACQUES VILLENEUVE
Position: 12th
Fastest lap: 1 min 23.438 secs "The car is not fantastic, but we''re not too slow for Friday. We don''t really know what other people were doing with fuel and tyres, but we found the car was generally better on old tyres today. The car is hitting the bumps quite badly down the pit straight - in fact, there is one particularly bad bump where it really bottoms hard - but otherwise, the rest of the track is pretty good. Even though the speeds are not high, Monaco is always quite thrilling to drive because of the closeness of the barriers. It''s an exciting weekend for everyone."