Wednesday October 2nd, 2002

McLaren test driver Alexander Wurz today broke the Barcelona track record as he continued to top the times on the second day of testing at the Spanish circuit.

The Austrian, always very fast in testing at Barcelona, set a quickest time of 1:16.348, lapping 16 hundreds of a second quicker than the previous benchmark, set by World Champion Michael Schumacher during qualifying for this year's Spanish Grand Prix.

Wurz, testing new components for the 2003 McLaren, was a massive two seconds faster than Briton David Coulthard, who joined the test today replacing compatriot Darren Turner at the wheel of the second McLaren.

The Williams team also joined the programme today, working with Spanish Marc Gene and Brazilian Antonio Pizzonia, who returned to work after testing for the Jaguar team at Barcelona two weeks ago. Gene was the quickest of the two, just outpacing Pizzonia after 48 laps.

Toyota test drivers Ryan Briscoe and Stephane Sarrazin continued working with the TF102B, the Japanese team's intermediary car, which incorporates next season's RVX-03 engine and a new seven-speed gearbox. Australian Briscoe was more than half a second faster than his French teammate, who was the man in charge of driving the updated car.

"Having completed our data acquisition programme this morning, we then focused on some general set-up work in preparation for the Japanese Grand Prix next weekend," said Briscoe. "This included aerodynamic comparisons that gave rather satisfying results.

"It has been a very productive day for me and up to now everything went according to plan. Hopefully we will complete our programme on the same note tomorrow."

British American Racing driver Ryo Fukuda got behind the wheel of the Formula One car for the first time since April, the Japanese driver posting the slowest time of the day.

Testing at Barcelona resumes tomorrow.

Today's times:

Pos  Driver        Team-Engine         Tyres  Time     Laps
 1.  Wurz          McLaren-Mercedes    (M)    1:16.348  71
 2.  Coulthard     McLaren-Mercedes    (M)    1:18.462  39
 3.  Gene          Williams-BMW        (M)    1:18.798  48
 4.  Pizzonia      Williams-BMW        (M)    1:18.804  35
 5.  Briscoe       Toyota              (M)    1:20.224  26
 6.  Sarrazin      Toyota              (M)    1:20.840  26
 7.  Fukuda        BAR-Honda           (B)    1:21.737  70
 
All Timing Unofficial