HEIDFELD CLOSES IN

The battle for the number two seat has concluded with Nick Heidfeld again outpacing Antonio Pizzonia on the only day that they ran similar programmes. Heidfeld suffered an engine failure on the first day to finish half a second down on Pizzonia but on the second day, when they were both put on the same programme with identical fuel loads, Heidfeld edged out his team mate and topped the days times. Pizzonia set the overall second best time for the test on day three, however this was after Heidfeld had departed the test and the pressure was off. Pizzonia is a quick and promising driver but Heidfeld, with less experience with the team, settled in remarkably quickly, provided good feedback and has been generally the quicker of the two. I cannot see anything but Heidfeld being named as Williams’ number two driver on Monday.

Red Bull’s David Coulthard surprisingly topped the test times with a rapid 1’09.175 and once again Klien proved the quicker of the two aspirants for the second seat on the one day that he and Liuzzi ran together. Liuzzi set the forth overall best time, over a second faster than Klien, but this was after Klien had left the test. Klien startled everyone by being the quickest on day one. All in all a good test for Red Bull, despite the fact that they were the only team still using last years (faster) cars, after the turmoil of having both their popular team principal, Tony Purcell, and managing director, Dave Pitchforth inexplicably fired and replaced by Christian Horner and Gunther Steiner, who had previously sacked from the job when the team was called Jaguar.

One of the teams running their 2005 cars was Toyota who had Trulli, Panis and Zonta continuing to rack up miles in the TF105 with Trulli finishing 7th fastest overall. The new BAR 007 was a bit disappointing with both Sato and Button being off the Toyota’s pace and with more engine problems from the new Honda. Another two enormous engine failures during this test, makes it a total of four since the new car began testing just last week.

Renault were the fastest “new car” team at Valencia as they debuted their latest car, the R25. It was a promising start with Alonso, despite encountering hydraulic problems, finishing the test with the 6th best time ahead of Trulli and with Fisichella ending up just one tenth slower than the Toyota’s quickest time.

Meanwhile, at Catalunya, Ferrari turned up with the car that they will start the 2005 season, the 2004M. Michael Schumacher gave the car its first public outing and ended up second fastest to team-mate and test driver, Luca Badoer in the interim car. Despite an oil leak on Schumacher’s car on day two the Ferraris ran like clockwork and raced up a total of 402 laps between them.

Juan Pablo Montoya briefly ran the new McLaren, the MP4/20 on the first day and although putting in just 37 laps was only half a second down on Schumacher’s time. One expects that it will get faster once it has a serious hit out over a longer test.

Sauber were also on hand to test the reliability of their new car and although off the pace of the Ferraris, covered over 1400 kilometres on one engine before Jacques Villeneuve brought proceedings to a premature halt by having a big accident at the forth gear Campsa corner, completely destroying the right rear corner of the car.

VALENCIA

BEST TIMES DRIVER CAR TIME 1 David Coulthard Jaguar R5B 1'09.175 (3) 2 Antonio Pizzonia Williams FW26C 1'09.447 3 Nick Heidfeld Williams FW26C 1'10.079 (2) 4 Vitantonio Liuzzi Jaguar R5B 1'10.224 5 Franck Montagny Renault R24 1'10.252 (4) 6 Fernando Alonso Renault R25 1'10.398 7 Jarno Trulli Toyota TF105 1'10.597 8 Giancarlo Fisichella Renault R25 1'10.636 9 Takuma Sato BAR 007 1'10.803 10 Anthony Davidson BAR 006C 1'10.841 11 Christian Klien Jaguar R5B 1'11.241 (1) 12 Olivier Panis Toyota TF105 1'11.460 13 Jenson Button BAR 007 1'11.557 14 Ricardo Zonta Toyota TF105 1'12.676 15 Andy Priaulx Williams FW26C 1'12.790

(-) fastest on day

BARCELONA

BEST TIMES DRIVER CAR TIME 1 Luca Badoer Ferrari F2004B 1'15.446 (1,2,3) 2 Michael Schumacher Ferrari F2004B 1'15.902 3 Juan Pablo Montoya McLaren MP4/20 1'16.536 4 Felipe Massa Sauber C24 1'17.470 5 Jacques Villeneuve Sauber C24 1'18.108

(-) fastest on day

Sam Snape

31/01/05