Thursday March 21st, 2002

Former Formula One World Champion Jacques Villeneuve has been forced to withdraw from this week's testing at the Barcelona circuit due to a back problem.

Canadian star Villeneuve, who is dismayed at the performance of his struggling British American Racing team this season, took a last-minute decision to miss the test.

Villeneuve's motorhome rapidly disappeared from the Barcelona track when he failed to turn up, but the team denied rumours that the 11-time Grand Prix winner backed out because of the poor progress of the team.

"We are disappointed by the current situation, but Jacques and the team are working hard together to improve," said a team spokesperson on Thursday.

"It is a change to the programme because Jacques was complaining of a back problem. We left it a couple of days but after a discussion between the team and Jacques we decided to exclude him from the testing programme.

"He will travel to Miami to acclimatise at the weekend, train there for a few days, then he will go to Brazil on the Wednesday."

Briton Anthony Davidson, 22, deputised for Villeneuve in the Spanish test and has recently been named as BAR's reserve driver for the 2002 season.

Published at 14:49:19 GMT