Wednesday September 17th, 2003

Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya was again the quickest driver on the second day of testing at the Silverstone circuit in England.

The Williams team continued their preparation work for the United States and Japanese Grands Prix with both Montoya and test driver Marc Gene driving the BMW-powered FW25s. Montoya finished nearly a second ahead of the Spanish driver, who covered a massive 116 laps.

"Juan Pablo and Marc continued the testing programme today at Silverstone in preparation for Indianapolis and Suzuka," said Williams' test team manager Tim Newton. "Juan completed 43 laps and spent the session concentrating on fine tuning the suspension as well as conducting some brake evaluation work.

"Marc successfully completed 600 kilometres, which included a race simulation. Both drivers also undertook tyre testing duties for Michelin."

Britain's Ralph Firman was back to work with Jordan after missing the last two Formula One races on medical grounds. The rookie had to sit out the Hungarian and Italian Grands Prix after he crashed heavily in Saturday practice at the Hungaroring last month.

Firman finished the day more than three seconds off the pace after only 26 laps with his Ford-powered car.

Testing at Silverstone concludes tomorrow.

Today's times:

Pos  Driver        Team-Engine         Tyres  Time     Laps
 1.  Montoya       Williams-BMW         (M)  1:19.966   43
 2.  Gene          Williams-BMW         (M)  1:20.824  116
 3.  Firman        Jordan-Ford          (M)  1:23.171   26

All Timing Unofficial