Montoya second fastest

By Karl King
February 17 2006

Heikki Kovalainen was quickest on a sunny day at Valencia today. The Renault test driver's fastest lap was just 0.039s quicker than second man Juan Pablo Montoya.

The Columbian's time was over half a second quicker than that of team mate Kimi Raikkonen who set the fourth fastest time of the day, two tenths off of Giancarlo Fisichella. The two McLaren drivers circulated the track 119 times between them.

Unfortunately both McLaren drivers experienced mechanical failures on track before the end of the session, with Kimi managing to return for the final ten minutes.

Renault were the busiest team of the day, managing a very impressive amount of laps - just under 260 between their two drivers.

The pace of the Williams was not as good as recent times, with their drivers setting the 6th and 7th fastest times of the day, with David Coulthard's Red Bull 5th. The bottom of the timesheets were occupied by MF1 racing drivers Albers and Sutil.

*Amendment - note that Renault completed 260 rather than my previous typing error of 160.