Thursday July 5th, 2001

Williams and Benetton continued testing at Barcelona today, with Williams's test driver Marc Gene setting the fastest lap of the day.

The Spaniard, driving along Benetton's Mark Webber and Jenson Button, set a time of 1:21.386 - the best time of the past three days and almost half a second faster than Webber, who followed in second.

"Today was another good day with us completing the engine mileage," Gene said. "We did work for Michelin and continued with traction and launch control testing. It was very hot again, and we had no reliability problems, which is important. Tomorrow we are planning to do wet track testing for Michelin and are hoping the forecast (that we will have rain) comes true, as in these conditions I am sure any water sprayed on the track will dry too quickly."

Williams also tested aerodynamic straight-line speed at the Lurcy-Levis circuit, with Ricardo Sperafico concluding a three-day test for Williams. "In both Barcelona and Lurcy-Levis we had no problems on the engine side," Dr. Mario Theissen, BMW Motorsport Director, said.

Today's times:

Pos  Driver  Team-Engine            Time      Laps
 1.  Gene    Williams BMW      (M)  1:21.386  72 
 2.  Webber  Benetton Renault  (M)  1:21.821  56 
 3.  Button  Benetton Renault  (M)  1:22.425  15 

All Timing Unofficial

Published at 17:37:28 GMT