The chance of
Williams rejoining the F1 frontrunners increased when the team topped a recent multi-team test at
Silverstone.
Heinz-Harald Frentzen beat off the
McLaren of
David Coulthard by 0.13seconds to head the timesheets, with Michael Schumacher third fastest. The test was affected by rain, however, restricting the amount of dry weather running achieved by some teams, and leaving
Williams' senior engineer James Robinson playing down his team's performance.
(We were reasonably quick,) he said, (but we wanted to try the car on three types of circuit in the space of three weeks to see how it went. Unfortunately,
Silverstone will now have to wait until the beginning of July.) The car ran with revised suspension and aerodynamics but, despite his performance, Frentzen believed that there was more to come. (We still have to stabilise the rear end,) he said, (but we are definitely going in the right direction.)
Coulthard and Schumacher concentrated on tyre tests for Bridgestone and Goodyear respectively, while Jordan, Sauber, Prost and Stewart attempted to put mileage on revised specification cars.
