15/09/2004
NEWS STORY
Ferrari's Rubens Barrichello and Sauber's Felipe Massa continued their respective teams' preparations for the final races of the season at Jerez today.
Rubens continued with tyre testing for the forthcoming races at Shanghai, Suzuka and Interlagos. The Brazilian, at the wheel of an F2004, came within 0.019s of breaking Kimi Raikkonen's unofficial lap record. Tomorrow (Thursday), Michael Schumacher takes over testing duties.
Sauber continued its three-day test at the Circuito Permanente de Jerez today, with Felipe Massa covering 99 laps in chassis C23-05. Tomorrow, newly-crowned F3000 champion Vitantonio Liuzzi will take over the driving.
"In the morning we were able to finalise our aerodynamic work for the three remaining races in China, Japan and Brazil," said race engineer, Mike Krack. "We also did a Bridgestone tyre data verification in the afternoon. Thanks to good weather and track conditions Felipe was able to run a lot of laps which helped us to catch up with the programme."