Most teams participating in the 1999 Formula One season began their winter tests today, at Barcelona, Spain. Under cloudy skies and in cool but dry temperature conditions, thirteen drivers of nine teams began testing at 9:00am. BAR and Benetton were the only teams not to send in a driver.

All teams ran their 1998 models, adjusting them to the new tyres from Bridgestones with the extra groove added to the front wheels. Jordan driver, Damon Hill - who was consistently third fastes throughout the day - was reported to be very pleased with the Jordan car's adjustment to the Bridgestone rubbers. The Briton drove 21 laps in Jordan chassis 06 before suffering from a hydraulic problem and then changed to chassis 05 before completing another 17 laps.

Ferrari's test driver, Luca Badoer, also concentrated on tyre testing and the team reported no "no particular problems during the day". Badoer finished fastest, a few hundredth of a second ahead of McLaren driver David Coulthard.

Testing will continue tomorrow, with Michael Schumacher joining in the other drivers.

Circuit of Catalunya, length: 4.728 km

Driver       Team          Best lap time     laps
Badoer       Ferrari       1.24.19             60
Coulthard    McLaren       1.24.23             77
Hill         Jordan        1.24.41             39
Heidfeld     McLaren       1.24.88             54
Salo         Arrows        1.25.38             50
Diniz        Sauber        1.25.42             48
Wilson       Williams      1.25.67             47
Trulli       Prost         1.25.75             36
Zanardi      Williams      1.25.91             50
Sarrazin     Prost         1.26.36             68
Herbert      Stewart       1.26.66             55
Burti        Stewart       1.26.86             47
Redon        Minardi       1.27.46             64

Weather: air temp. 11 C, track 12 C, cloudy skies.