Wednesday Valencia testing report 2002-02-06

Maranello may have been the focus of attention today but testing continued at Valencia in dry and windy conditions. Giancarlo Fisichella topped the times in the EJ12, setting a fastest of 1.13.321 ahead of Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya for Williams.

Sauber continued to show their form with Nick Heidfeld in fourth ahead of team mate Felipe Massa in fifth. Heidfeld stopped early when the engine of his C21 reached it's mileage limit; Massa had an off track excursion early on, damaging the front suspension but was soon back on course.

The third Williams of Marc Gene was sixth, followed by Jenson Button who had a useful morning but was later hampered by technical problems. Pedro de la Rosa was the sole Jaguar on track in eighth in front of BAR's Jacques Villeneuve. In the BAR004 Villeneuve only managed 35 laps and team mate Olivier Panis was outside the top ten, behind Jordan's Takuma Sato, nearly three seconds off the top time.

The Arrows A23 joined testing today with Enrique Bernoldi behind the wheel, completing 15 laps, while the two Minardis rounded off the bottom of the times. The new PS02 delivered promising results according to the team, Mark Webber finished ahead of Alex Yoong.