Reported from Kyalami by Michele Lupini
Alex Zanardi emerged second quickest from today's test at Kyalami, but only after squeezing the very last seconds of sunlight out if the day in an attempt to regain lost time while his Williams sat in the garage yesterday. A shunt on Sunday saw Williams air-freighting components in from England to repair the Italian's car.
Also challenging the sunset this evening, was Ricardo Zonta, he too making up for lost time for BAR, following an ongoing series of transmission control failures. Sadly for the team, the problem struck again late this evening, albeit after a good number of clearly constructive laps in the BAR today. Zonta relieved Jacques Villeneuve, who flew out last night after the Canadian concluded his three-day stint at the circuit outside Johannesburg.
The third driver present today, Ralf Schumacher, continued with testing despite a spin in the morning and some niggling troubles during the day, appeared to make good progress, ending quickest for the third day out of four, with a quickest lap of 1:24.5sec.
Zanardi concluded his run with three practice starts after the sun had dropped below the distant horison amid a nearby late evening thunderstorm, Alex using the opportunity to get used to standing starts once Interestingly, and perhaps typical of Alex, he blasted off from the second row of the grid each time, alternating between the clean outside and dirty inside lines, before finally calling it a day at 18:35, well into the dusk.
Pos Driver Car Time*
1 Ralf Schumacher Williams FW 21 Mecachrome 1:24.5sec
2 Alex Zanardi Williams FW 21 Mecachrome 1:24.7sec
3 Ricardo Zonta BAR 01 Supertech 1:25.3sec
Circuit Length: 4.270km
Track temperature: 42C
Ambient temperature: 31C
Conditions: Warm, Sunny. Partly cloudy later
* All times unofficial, no official timing in place.
BAR and Williams Reliability Worries
Despite several attempts by both teams to run full race simulations at Kyalami this week, neither of them has yet to complete that task. Various problems, mainly concerning reliability, and more often than not in the transmission department have not only stopped race distance runs, but kept all three cars in the garages for long periods at a time. It's been a difficult time at Kyalami, especially for BAR, continually beset with transmission control software trouble. Williams, on the other hand, although having had their fair share of downtime in the gearbox department, also appear to have suffered from snags as trivial as components falling off the car. With Australia's D date for departure looming a fortnight from now, both BAR and Williams must be hoping for an improvement in fortune if they are to play a significant part in the results in Melbourne.
No Extra Day in Kyalami
Despite requests from the teams being accepted by Kyalami as well as the local motor sport authority to extend their test session to a sixth day on Thursday, BAR and Williams could not change travel arrangements sufficiently to warrant staying on in South Africa. Testing ends tomorrow, much to the relief of local touring car teams who now retain their Thursday session at Kyalami to prepare new machinery for the opening round of the SA national championship.
Credit: Michele Lupini, South Africa