Thursday June 8th, 2000

Jenson Button answered the reports claiming he has lost his Williams seat for 2001 by setting the fastest time of the day and the week at Monza.

"The car feels very good and even though the mileage could have been higher today, I am confident going out to Canada," said Button. "Having spent quite a lot of time on this Monza track, I am now familiar with the nature of the circuit, the long straights and the fast corners and I am also looking forward to the Italian Grand Prix."

Second fastest was David Coulthard, taking over from Mika Hakkinen, followed by his team's test driver, Olivier Panish, and Arrows' Jos Verstappen.

Also present today was BAR's Jacques Villeneuve who set the fifth fastest time. His teammate, Ricardo Zonta, spent the day testing the new "Athena 200" development BAR-Honda chassis, the Brazilian showing no side effects from yesterday's high-speed accident. Zonta completed 25 laps with the new car, the first time one of the team's regular race drivers has been involved in the 'Athena 200' development project.

Today's times:

Pos  Driver      Team                Time      Laps 
 1.  Button      Williams-BMW        1:24.095  46   
 2.  Coulthard   McLaren-Mercedes    1:24.700  73   
 3.  Panis       McLaren-Mercedes    1:25.138  45   
 4.  Verstappen  Arrows-Supertec     1:25.248  91   
 5.  Villeneuve  BAR-Honda           1:25.321  71   
 6.  Frentzen    Jordan-Mugen Honda  1:25.345  99   
 7.  Diniz       Sauber-Petronas     1:25.598  60   
 8.  Junqueira   Williams-BMW        1:25.644  50   
 9.  Irvine      Jaguar-Cosworth     1:26.063  31   
10.  Zonta       BAR-Honda           1:26.294  25   
11.  Pantano     Benetton-Playlife   1:26.758  28