By Huw Alban
April 28 2002

Heinz-Harald Frentzen took over where Enrique Bernoldi left off for the first two days of this Barcelona test, by again setting the second fastest lap time of the day. Frentzen pronounced that he was 'basically' happy with the A23 and is looking forward to the Silverstone test next week. Details from the test are sketchy, but a quote released by formula1.com from Heinz-Harald reveals that the team were working on setup configurations to try and understand the new cars behaviour. In addition, it's important to note at this test that there has been no repeat of the rear wing failures that occured last week in Valencia.

"Today I was trying to find a balance for the car, I have tried several different set-ups," Frentzen explained to formula1.com. "I am trying to find its different behaviour and the reaction of the car. Basically, the car is OK. I have got to understand the basic characteristics of the car so I will carry on this work to Silverstone next week. Now the team has got the data to analyse for that test so that we can develop further."

Looking at the times from this test it is interesting to note that although Frentzen and Bernoldi both managed to be second fastest consistently on each day, it is Frentzen that did so by the smallest margin. On Monday Enrique Bernoldi was 1.6 seconds slower than quickest man Jarno Trulli, but that slipped to 2.46 seconds on Tuesday. Today Frentzen blew those splits away by being only 0.933 seconds slower than todays qiuckest driver Jenson Button. Just through experience alone, Frentzen is already over .5 of a second faster than Bernoldi - although we should be careful not to read too much into this as we have no idea what fuel loads were being carried and what configuration the cars were in (i.e. race or qualifying trim).

In addition to todays running at Barcelona, the OrangeArrows test team also carried out some straight line tests at Vairano. The team are to continue at Vairano tomorrow.

Wednesday's times from Barcelona:

01. Jenson Button - Renault R202 - 1:17.687 - 88 laps
02. Heinz-Harald Frentzen - Arrows A23 - 1:18.620 - 51 laps
03. Takuma Sato - Jordan EJ12 - 1:18.962 - 69 laps
04. Mark Webber - Minardi PS02 - 1:20.249 - 66 laps
05. Giancarlo Fisichella - Jordan EJ12 - 1:20.387 - 80 laps
06. Alex Yoong - Minardi PS02 - 1:23.503 - 23 laps