'Catalan Rocket' fastest again.

The BMW Williams team continued its test programme at Barcelona, where Marc Gene - affectionately known by the team as the 'Catalan Rocket', moved through the third of his four days at 'home'.

The team concentrated on a number of evaluations during the session, with electronic systems and brakes coming in for particular scrutiny. With just Benetton at the test alongside the Grove team, tyre supplier Michelin also took advantage of the situation to continue work on its own developments.

'Catalan Rocket' fastest again.

The BMW Williams team continued its test programme at Barcelona, where Marc Gene - affectionately known by the team as the 'Catalan Rocket', moved through the third of his four days at 'home'.

The team concentrated on a number of evaluations during the session, with electronic systems and brakes coming in for particular scrutiny. With just Benetton at the test alongside the Grove team, tyre supplier Michelin also took advantage of the situation to continue work on its own developments.

"Today was another good day for us, completing the scheduled mileage," Gene reported, "We did work for Michelin and continued with traction and launch control testing. It was very hot again, but we had no reliability problems, which is important. Tomorrow we are planning to do wet track testing for Michelin, and are hoping the forecast that we will have rain comes true as, in these conditions, I am sure any water sprayed on the track will dry too quickly."

Gene completed the greatest distance of any of the three drivers present at the Circuit de Catalunya, with almost a race distance under his belt by the end of the day.

"We had another successful day, with Marc completing 72 laps," confirmed Tim Newton, Williams' test team manager, "In the morning, we worked on alternative brake set-ups and, in the afternoon, tested different tyre compounds."

While Gene continued to pound around Barcelona's grand prix venue, new team-mate Ricardo Sperafico brought the parallel test at Lurcy-Levis to a close with more straightline aerodynamic testing. On both fronts, there was good news for engine supplier BMW, whose units again ran well in the hot conditions.

"In Barcelona, we generated some valuable data from the engine," commented motorsport director Dr Mario Theissen, "We did no specific testing on the engine side, just supported the tyre testing programme. In both Barcelona and Lurcy-Levis, we had no problems on the engine side."

Gene wraps up the Barcelona test tomorrow [Friday].

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