Spanish GP: BAR Friday notes

Lucky Strike B.A.R Honda made a positive start to their Spanish Grand Prix preparations today, with drivers Olivier Panis and Jacques Villeneuve completing the first timed session in 5th and 16th positions respectively. The team made steady progress towards Sunday's race and it was a particularly positive day for Olivier after the frustrations of four difficult races.

Olivier Panis

"I'm very pleased with how practice went for me today; 5th position is a big improvement after the last few races. We had a good test at Silverstone last week and we have taken a small step forward in terms of engine performance for this race. Honda have been working very hard to improve the engine race by race and we can see that beginning to show here. 5th place is a great way to start the weekend and a good boost for the team. I'm happy with the tyre options so far but we still have a lot of work to do because qualifying is another day."

Jacques Villeneuve

"We've seen a small difference with the engine here today and small differences always help. This track tends towards a lot of understeer which usually suits us but we're not quite there with my set-up yet. We've done a lot of work exploring the tyre options and we have a reasonably good race set-up so far but Olivier seems to have found a better qualifying set-up. Generally, I'm happy to see some improvement, however small."

David Richards, Team Principal

"I'm very pleased for Olivier after such a run of bad luck over the last four races. We have made a positive start to the weekend and we now need to keep up the good work and make the most of every opportunity. We are starting to see steady progress being made with the car and, in particular, a gradual improvement in the engine performance."

Driver Chassis
Jacques Villeneuve
BAR004/06
Position: 16th
Best time: 1:21.413 (32 laps)

Olivier Panis
BAR004/04
Position:5th
Best time: 1:20.758 (46 laps)
T-Car: BAR004/03

Temperatures
Track: 19-24 C
Air: 20-25 C

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