By Jamie Makin
May 7 2005

The weekend got off to a worrying start for both Jacques Villeneuve and Felipe Massa. Both drivers needed to come to grips with the new track surface in Barcelona as well as finding a good balance for their race cars. Villeneuve was recently promoted to 4th place after BAR Honda's disqualification from the San Marino Grand Prix. He has taken this motivation in to the Spanish Grand Prix weekend and gotten comfortable with is C24. He managed to put it in 14th place after the first two free practice sessions.

"I’m pretty happy today," said a rejuvenated Villeneuve. "I was worried initially because we didn’t have a very good test here recently, but it turned out not so bad. The balance wasn’t great this morning but it was better this afternoon. It’s not yet as good as Imola, but Felipe and I were working on different programmes so I’m sure that will improve tomorrow."

Villeneuve and Sauber struggled in pre-season testing at the repaved track and they must still learn to get their tyres to work properly with it. "The new surface here is very strange," said the Canadian driver. "It doesn’t feel like any other asphalt that we race on. It’s more like when you go indoor karting on concrete, so it gives you a weird feeling in the car. But it’s the same for everyone."

Although Massa's 12th place today ranked him ahead of his teammate, he seemed to struggle more with finding the right balance. "I was very unhappy with the set-up of the car this morning. The balance was bad and it felt really nervous in the high-speed corners," Massa rued. "We made a few changes for this afternoon and the car was transformed. It was quick right away, consistent and nice to drive again. I think we have a reasonable set-up now, so it was not a bad day after all. I’m feeling quietly optimistic."

Peter Sauber seemed satisfied with his team's work today. "I think Spain is a great country and Barcelona is a very nice city, and it looks as if the track was reciprocating those feelings as the day progressed," the team boss said. "We worked on different set-ups and tyre programmes and I feel that this afternoon we were able to reach a good set-up baseline for tomorrow."

Friday, Free Practice 1:

Driver	Chassis	Position	Best Time	Laps
J. Villeneuve	C24-04	12	1:20.621 (+4.946)	8
F. Massa	C24-06	11	1:19.328 (+3.653)	11
Spare Car	C24-03	-	-	-

Friday, Free Practice 2:

Driver	Chassis	Position	Best Time	Laps
J. Villeneuve	C24-04	14	1:18.336 (+3.274)	27
F. Massa	C24-06	12	1:17.931 (+2.869)	24
Spare Car	C24-03	-	-	-