Formula 1 News - February 2005
Formula 1 Testing

15 February: Fernando Alonso sets the fastest time this year so far at Barcelona. BAR test privately at Valencia

Testing commenced today at the Circuit de Catalunya in preparation for the start of the Formula 1 season. With the exception of BAR (testing at Valencia), Sauber and Minardi, all the teams were present.

Fernando Alonso in the Renault set the fastest time of the day with a time of 1:14.991 which was also the fastest time of any Formula 1 car this year and faster than the pole time of the Spanish Grand Prix in 2004. However Alonso's time is 1.2 seconds slower than the fastest time set in 2004.
Juan Pablo Montoya in the McLaren set the second fastest time with a 1:15.227 with Ricardo Zonta in the Toyota was third. 

Fernando Alonso was also the driver with the most number of laps with 110 followed by Michael Schumacher with 101 and Jarno Trulli with 97.

Kimi Raikkonen crashed heavily in the afternoon. Kimi was OK apart from a bruised thumb but the car was severely damaged.  The team believes a foreign body got jammed between the brake caliper and the inside of a wheel rim and machined a groove into the rim which caused an immediate failure. Kimi commented "I don't really know what happened. It was quite a big impact and I'm a bit shaken up and have hurt my thumb. I'm not going to be testing tomorrow but hopefully Pedro will be able to complete the programme with the repaired car."

At Valencia the BAR Honda team is testing privately. Jenson Button and Takuma Sato were on duty with Button driving the BAR007 while Sato was driving the modified BAR006. Button set the fastest time with a time of 1:11.54.

Testing continues tomorrow.

Formula 1 Team notes and reports below

Barcelona Times (as reported by Circuit de Catalunya)

Lap by Lap times (in pdf provided by Circuit de Catalunya)

Valencia Times (as reported by BAR Honda)

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