Thursday March 16th, 2000

Jenson Button ended Williams' two-day test at Silverstone with the fastest time of the day, and second best overall. The Briton completed his scheduled programme despite several hitches - including a puncture. "It's been a good test for me," he said afterwards, "not just for the times but also to get some more laps in and get to know the car a bit better. Obviously the times are quite promising.

"The items we have tried have worked and now we are looking forward to the race in Brazil but also to the next test where we can build on things a bit more. It's definintely been a good day."

Second fastest of the day was Olivier Panis, who was also fastest overall in this latest test session - yesterday Panis broke Giancarlo Fisichella's test time record from last year.

Also present were Jaguar, Jordan and Prost - the latter still suffering reliablity problems on track. "It's clear that we have still a lot of work ahead of us, especially on the electronic system in order to improve the car's reliability," said Peugeot's sporting director, John Walton. "We have progressed a little in performance but we have not been able to advance as we wished, because of the problems encountered in other areas. This session has allowed us to gain mileage on the car and to understand it a little more"

This week's test session also enabled Button to meet up with his old F3 competitor, Luciano Burti, who is running tests for Jaguar. Speaking about Button, Burti said today: "I really hope that he does a good job and I am pretty sure that he will because he is a good driver. And I really wanted him to do well because that will show that some young drivers coming up from Formula 3 and F3000 can do the job as well as any GP driver.

"I think that last year in F3 it was pretty close between Jenson, myself and Marc Hynes. Any of us could do a good job in F1 and he is just proving that."

Today's times:

Pos  Driver  Team                Time   
 1.  Button  Williams-BMW        1:25.17
 2.  Panis   McLaren-Mercedes    1:25.22
 3.  Trull   Jordan-Mugen Honda  1:25.47
 4.  Burti   Jaguar-Cosworth     1:27.10
 5.  Alesi   Prost-Peugeot       1:27.18

The 2000 fastest testing time is 1:24.84 (O. Panis)
The 1999 fastest testing time is 1:25.670 (G. Fisichella)