Silencing much speculation in the last few months, Benetton finally confirmed yesterday that it was losing both the Chief Designer, Rory Bryne, and the Technical Director, Ross Brawn.

Brawn was responsible for the design of the TWR world sportscar Jaguars, and the World Championship winning 1994 and 1995 Benetton cars. Brawn is expecting to be moving to a new job with either Arrows/TWR or Ferrari. Bryne is leaving racing completely to run a scuba diving school in South-East Asia.

Team principal, Flavio Briatore, said that Bryne had "played a key role in the development on next year's car."

Replacing Brawn will be Pat Symonds, formerly the team's head of research and development and Jean Alesi race engineer in 1996. The new chief designer will be Nick Wirth, who worked as Gerhard Berger's race engineer this year. Wirth formerly ran Simtek Grand Prix, and worked under Adrian Newey at Leyton House.

Jacques Villeneuve tested the new V10 Renault engine on the Le Castellet (France) circuit today. He drove a best time of 1m 06.410s without any problems.

Tarso Marques ended the tests for the Minardi team at the Imola (Italy) track today. Marques clocked at best time of 1m 46.660 on a soaked circuit, then in afternoon, when the track had dried out, he could start the testing program but he could only manage a few laps before he spun off at the Tamburello bend, ending the tests there. He did manage to set a fastest time of 1m 34.140s.

Jurg Muller performed another Bridgestone test at the Imola circuit. This test showed that Bridgestone has still some more work to do in the wet. Muller was 1.5 seconds slower than Marques, on Goodyear tyres, with a best time of 1m 34.140s. He did make up the time on the dry track in the afternoon with a fastest time of 1m 31.51s.