Friday January 18th, 2002

Williams driver Ralf Schumacher set the quickest time of the session on the fifth day of testing at the Valencia circuit.

The German driver, who for the first time tried driving with his new glasses, completed a total of 100 laps to finish the day nearly one second ahead of Frenchman Olivier Panis in the first of the BARs. The Brackley-based squad continued working with their first two 004 chassis, with Canadian Jacques Villeneuve driving the second Honda-powered car.

Mika Salo put an end to Toyota's testing programme at the Ricardo Tormo circuit by completing 72 laps at the wheel of the Michelin-shod TF102. The Finn, who set the sixth quickest time of the day, and his team were pleased with their progress during the four days.

"Well we have made some small progress, chipping away in different areas and getting better lap by lap," said Toyota's technical director Gustav Brunner. "We move to Paul Ricard next week where we will concentrate on long runs and reliability before we return to Barcelona the week after to continue our test programme."

The Minardi team concluded today their four-day test at Valencia, again with both Australian Mark Webber and Dutch Christijan Albers at the wheel of last year's PS01 chassis. Webber, who impressed team boss Paul Stoddart with his performance, was again able to lap within the 1m16s bracket.

"It's certainly great to be back in Formula One testing after the winter break," said Webber. "I really enjoyed working with this new team and the Minardi F1 PS01 chassis. The car ran very reliably which gives me the confidence to push harder. I'm very happy and feel pleased to help the team."

Albers was the slowest driver again today, nearly a second behind Webber. The Dutch, however, completed only 11 laps compared to the Australian's 34.

"I did not know this track and honestly it hasn't been so easy to learn the circuit so quickly," added Albers. "However, I'm pretty satisfied with the work we have done yesterday and today."

Testing at the Spanish circuit continues on Saturday, when the Ferrari team will be working alongside Williams and BAR.

Today's times:

Pos  Driver        Team-Engine         Tyres  Time     Laps   
 1.  R.Schumacher  Williams-BMW        (M)    1:12.997 100
 2.  Panis         BAR-Honda           (B)    1:13.771  79
 3.  Pizzonia      Williams-BMW        (M)    1:13.897  57
 4.  Villeneuve    BAR-Honda           (B)    1:14.023  34
 5.  Gene          Williams-BMW        (M)    1:14.098  59
 6.  Salo          Toyota              (M)    1:14.661  74
 7.  Davidson      BAR-Honda           (B)    1:15.102  63
 8.  Webber        Minardi-European    (M)    1:16.730  34
 9.  Albers        Minardi-European    (M)    1:17.620  11

All Timing Unofficial

Published at 17:01:43 GMT