A massive shunt for McLaren’s Alex Wurz saw the final day of testing at Paul Ricard, France, disrupted.
The Austrian went flying off the circuit early in the day doing serious damage to both his car and the opposing safety barriers.
Such was the damage to the barriers that the circuit control was forced to switch testing to the short-track layout.
When the action resumed it was BAR who set the pace with Takuma Sato creating some good news at the end of a forgettable week for his team.
Sato – who along with his team-mate will miss the upcoming Monaco Grand Prix due to the two-race ban imposed on BAR – finished the day one tenth ahead of Toyota’s Ricardo Zonta at the top.
The second Toyota of Olivier Panis was a further tenth behind in third, the Renault pairing of Heikki Kovalainen and Franck Montagny in fourth and fifth respectively.
McLaren didn’t take much further part in the day after the Wurz shunt.
Wurz was unharmed after the incident but with no car could no longer drive. Pedro de la Rosa was largely restricted to the sidelines due to concerns his team-mate’s crash could have been caused by a failure.
The only other problem reported on the day was at Sauber where Jacques Villeneuve damaged his C24 after running high over a kerb.
Testing resumes after the European Grand Prix with an outing scheduled for Silverstone on the first of June.
Written: Sat, 14 May 2005 00:10:00
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