Aussie success in first F1 test

AUSTRALIA'S reigning British Formula Ford Champion, 20-year-old James Courtney from Sydney, has completed his first official F1 test for Jaguar Racing.

The talented F3 driver was on duty yesterday in the Jaguar R2 and completed 39 laps of the Monza circuit in Italy - more than any of the other nine drivers at the test session.

Courtney put in a creditable performance and managed to finish the session ahead of Benetton's Jenson Button on the timesheets, while his best lap of the day was only 3.4 seconds slower than Michael Schumacher's quickest time.

He possibly could have gone even faster, but was given only one set of tyres for the duration of the 39 laps.

"The car's amazing," Courtney said. "We had a slight problem with the front of the car which made the handling deteriorate, but we've got that sorted out." The young Australian's day was not without incident though, as a minor off spoiled an otherwise clean sheet effort.

Until yesterday the bulk of Jaguar's testing duties have been handled by Courtney's F3 teammate Andre Lotterer, particularly since former test driver Pedro de la Rosa landed a race seat mid season. There are no plans at this stage to appoint a replacement test driver.

A dual world champion in karting as a teenager, Courtney is currently third in the F3 drivers' championship, 63 points behind the leader but only 13 points shy of second place.

He scored two second places in the last round at Brands Hatch, as well as pole position for the second race.

Many of the Formula One teams took part in the first day of testing in preparation for the up-coming German Grand Prix.

While it was a largely uneventful day for the most part, Michael Schumacher offered some excitement when he lost control of his Ferrari at the Variante della Roggia chicane, which is approached at more than 300km/h. The spectacular accident brought the session to an early close, but by then Schumacher had already topped the timesheet for the day.

Despite his car being wrecked, the triple world champion walked away unhurt and was given the all clear after being examined in the circuit's medical centre.

Times from Monza Day One:
1 Michael Schumacher (Ferrari) 1m23.869s (18 laps completed)
2 Olivier Panis (BAR) 1m24.019s (15)
3 Ralf Schumacher (Williams) 1m24.674s (25)
4 Ricardo Zonta (BAR) 1m25.123s (26)
5 Alexander Wurz (McLaren) 1m25.123s (24)
6 Marc Gené (Williams) 1m25.320s (37)
7 Darren Turner (McLaren) 1m26.388s (27)
8 Giancarlo Fisichella (Benetton) 1m26.421s (15)
9 James Courtney (Jaguar) 1m27.267s (39)
10 Jenson Button (Benetton) 1m27.447s (17)