Sunday February 13th, 2000

By Michele Lupini, South Africa

BAR Honda and BMW Williams continued with testing at Kyalami today, where Ricardo Zonta was quickest, setting a time of 1:23.982 in the BAR, in spite of rain interrupting the session with a typical highveld thunderstorm early in the afternoon.

Despite going out again later, Ralf Schumacher could not improve on his 1:24.164 before his Williams suffered an engine failure late in the afternoon. It was the first serious technical failure of the week for either team.

Jenson Button went off in the wet with slight damage to the Williams nose after setting an earlier time of 1:24.658.

20,000 spectators had been through Kyalami's gates today by the time the rain started falling. The Kyalami summer rain has been met with some scepticism by the teams - with Johannesburg experiencing its wettest February in over fifty years. But the warm, wet conditions could be playing into both teams' hands.

A new-look F1 calendar this year sees several traditionally dry races moved to dates in rainfall periods for those countries. The British Grand Prix, for example, has shifted to April, over Easter weekend - a traditionally wet time at Silverstone.

That could mean that the wet testing done at Kyalami may just have been a little more significant than it seems as during their time on a wet Kyalami, the Williams and BAR teams would have better honed in their chassis' wet set-ups.

Williams will conclude their week's program tomorrow (Monday), while BAR will stay on until Wednesday with Jacques Villeneuve, who replaces Ricardo Zonta at the wheel as of tomorrow.

Today's times:

Pos  Driver        Team          Time      Laps
 1.  Zonta         BAR-Honda     1:23.982   90 
 2.  R.Schumacher  Williams-BMW  1:24.164   53 
 3.  Button        Williams-BMW  1:24.658   23 

Kyalami's best time in 1999: 1:20.993 (R. Schumacher, Williams-Supertec)