Zonta Beats Honda At Last.
Ricardo Zonta became the first driver to get the better of Jos Verstappen and Honda, when he lapped the Jerez circuit quickest of all on day four of the latest test.
Ricardo Zonta became the first driver to get the better of Jos Verstappen and Honda, when he lapped the Jerez circuit quickest of all on day four of the latest test.
The Brazilian, in his first real test for the British American Racing team, finally got ahead of the newcomers after days of being outpaced. Zonta's time proved to be 3/10ths of a second quicker than Verstappen's best, and stood as the best of the test. The BAR team, which also ran Jacques Villeneuve at Jerez, remained concerned by reliability problems, however, and suffered another rear wing failure during the four-day sojourn.
Benetton and Stewart continued to test alongside Honda and BAR, with the former also suffering from rear wing failures. Nevertheless, Giancarlo Fisichella found an improvement in his B199 to finish the day ahead of both Villeneuve and the Stewarts, which separated him from team-mate Alex Wurz. Rubens Barrichello once again got the better of Stewart partner Johnny Herbert.
Leading performances (27 January):
Ricardo Zonta BAR-Supertec 1min 24.95secs
Jos Verstappen Honda-Honda 1min 25.25secs
Giancarlo Fisichella Benetton-Playlife 1min 25.36secs
Jacques Villeneuve BAR-Supertec 1min 25.43secs
Rubens Barrichello Stewart-Ford 1min 26.63secs
Johnny Herbert Stewart-Ford 1min 27.14secs
Alex Wurz Benetton-Playlife 1min 28.08secs
