20/01/2005
NEWS STORY
Days ahead of the track debut of its 2005 contender, McLaren dominated proceedings at Valencia with test driver Alexander Wurz outpacing the opposition by a stupendous 1.6s
Second quickest was Renault tester Franck Montagny, who was joined today by Fernando Alonso. Unfortunately the Spaniard's return to the cockpit was marred by an engine failure. He also had an early spin, but this was thought to be the result of a technical problem rather than driver error.
Third quickest, and quickest of the 2005 cars, was Jenson Button, who out-paced teammate Takuma Sato, in the 2005-spec 2004 car (!), by 0.129s.
Sauber's Jacques Villeneuve was sixth, 1.031s off the pace of Button, the only other driver present running a 2005 car. The Canadian focussed on set-ups and tyre evaluations. Felipe Massa takes over tomorrow (Friday).