Text - Panasonic Toyota Racing: Barcelona Test - Day 1

On the opening day of this week's 3-day-test at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona, the Panasonic Toyota Racing team continued its ongoing pre-season development programme. Olivier Panis completed 51 laps in the TF103 race car, topping the day's timesheets with a best lap time of 1m15.48s. Cristiano da Matta reverts to the TF102B interim car for this week's test and totalled 53 laps in today's session.

Olivier Panis - Car No. 20
Chassis: TF103/01
Best lap time: 1m15.48s, 51 laps completed
Working on: Michelin tyre testing, HANS development work "Everything went quite ok today and I am reasonably happy. We continued with our Australia preparations, working on different things. We conducted a small tyre construction test and we did some further development work on the HANS system this morning. Overall, we are heading in a good direction."

Cristiano da Matta - Car No. 21
Chassis: TF102B
Best lap time: 1m19.18s, 53 laps completed
Working on: Software development
"I cannot say I am too pleased with today's session. I have been driving the TF102B intermediary car and we have been developing some software for the race season. We managed just over 50 laps, but it has not been the best of days and I am hoping for a better day tomorrow."

Weather: A snowy start, clearing to give blue sky and sunshine by lunchtime. Air temperature 03¼C - 11¼C.
Track: Wet start, dry throughout the morning. Dry all afternoon. Track temperature 03¡C - 20¡C.

Preview
This week's Barcelona test carries on tomorrow with Olivier and Cristiano again driving in the TF103 and the TF102B respectively.

Next tests
25-26 February 2003, Circuito de Jerez, Barcelona, Spain
25-27 February 2003, Autodromo Enzo & Dino Ferrari, Imola, San Marino

Next race
07-09 March 2003, Australian Grand Prix, Albert Park, Melbourne