BAR HONDA COMPLETES SOUTH AFRICAN TEST IN KYALAMI

FIA Formula 1 World Championship

Testing Kyalami, 7-16 February 2000

Lucky Strike Reynard BAR Honda's South African adventure came to an end this afternoon after a gruelling 10-day test at the Kyalami circuit near Johannesburg. In the hands of Jacques Villeneuve and Ricardo Zonta, the BAR Honda 002 completed more than 500 laps here, taking the pre-season tally to over 5,000 kilometres, as the team prepares for the 2000 Formula One season which starts in Melbourne on 12 March.

The atrocious weather offered by South Africa's wettest February in living memory, brought more than 300mm of rain to the area during the past ten days and forced the BAR Honda team to extend its stay by a further 48 hours. Only one complete day was lost to the elements, however, and the team was still able to run through the development programme scheduled for this test.

Takefumi Hosaka, Honda F1 Project Leader, confirmed that the test had been very successful from Honda's perspective. "This intensive period of testing has allowed us to gather a great deal of data. We will aim to consolidate this information during the test in Jerez next week, when we will establish the final specification of our engines for the first race in Melbourne.

"This test has also been very useful in terms of developing our relationship with BAR and we have enjoyed many detailed technical discussions with the team about the development of the car. The engine has been extremely reliable in the warm weather, so we are quite pleased."

BAR Team Manager, Robert Synge, is pleased that the team's hard work has been rewarded. "Running for ten consecutive days has made it a long and demanding test, but it has been a fruitful one," he said. "Despite the frustrations of the weather, we have a managed to complete nearly our entire programme and have had some encouraging results with the development parts we tested.

"We have already exceeded 5,000 kilometres of testing this winter, which equates to about 16 Grands Prix. To have achieved nearly an entire season's race distance by mid-February is a remarkable achievement."

Originally expecting to drive for only three days earlier in the test, Jacques Villeneuve returned to Kyalami to complete the final two days and was able to benefit from the improved conditions to record some more valuable miles in the car, setting the fastest time of the test in the process.

"We have made some real progress," said the Canadian, "but it was a bit of a frustrating test to be honest. We lost time in the first few days to the weather and then we have had some little problems in these two final days. The car is running strongly, though, and we are improving the pace all the time. We still have work to do and Jerez will be important next week."

Ricardo Zonta was delighted to spend four uninterrupted days in the car. "Last year, I never had enough time to set up the car properly for myself, so I was going into race weekends with Jacques' settings," explained the Brazilian. "It has been great to get a long stretch of running this week. It has helped me to develop the car to my liking and that makes me more confident on the track."

The team returns to Europe for a three-day test in Jerez, Spain, next week (23-25 February), followed by two further days at Silverstone before the team heads to Australia for the first race of the season.>/P>

Unofficial fastest times from Kyalami