Valencia testing 2002-04-02

Eight teams and nine drivers took part in today's testing session at Valencia in Spain; Ferrari, Arrows and Minardi were the three absentees. The morning saw little action on track as the weather was poor with heavy rain showers. Most drivers stayed in the garages to wait the wet conditions out -- eventually the downpour eased off but it remained wet for the remainder of the day.

Sauber's Nick Heidfeld set the fastest time of the day, clocking a 1:33.03 out of 42 laps and working on aerodynamics and wet weather tyre testing for Bridgestone. Takuma Sato was half a second behind in the similarly Bridgestone shod Jordan, working on traction and launch control. Jaguar's Eddie Irvine was third fastest while McLaren test driver Alex Wurz was fifth between the two Williams' of testers Antonio Pizzonia and Marc Gene.

Fernando Alonso was seventh for Renault followed by Allan McNish testing wet weather set up for Toyota and Michelin tyre work. Anthony Davidson rounded up the times in the BAR in what was a fairly quiet day despite quite a few drivers spinning off in the wet weather.