FIA INTERNATIONAL FORMULA 3000
OFFICIAL TEST AT CIRCUIT DE CATALUNYA, BARCELONA

Day One - 4th December 2001

Brazilian's Antonio Pizzonia and Ricardo Sperafico were back in the Petrobras Junior Team cars for the start of a two-day official test at Barcelona today.  Having not driven the cars since September, they were both eager to get back driving.  Antonio finished fourth at the end of the first session while Ricardo was seventh.  The quickest times from the afternoon session were set in the last half an hour, when the track was at it's coolest.  Antonio moved up intofirst position with only ten minutes of the session remaining, but dropped to second when Bruni went quickest in the last five minutes.  Ricardo Sperafico enjoyed being back in the car but had a brake problem and did not use his second set of new tyres and therefore finished thirteenth this afternoon.

Antonio Pizzonia 1:31.959

"We tried a lot of different things for next year, so we did a lot of short runs, trying different set-ups.  Tomorrow we are going to have a normal test day, working a little bit on the car set-up with new tyres on to try and set some quick times."

Ricardo Sperafico 1:33.207

"It was good to be back in the car, we did a lot of work which will help us in the new car for next year.  We had a problem with the brakes all day, but have just found out late this afternoon, so we didn't have time to use the second set of new tyres.  Anyway we have done some important work to help with the set-up for next year and we'll see what happens tomorrow."

Team Manager - Paul Jackson

"We had a reasonable day today, both drivers getting back up to speed after a few weeks lay off.  We worked our way through a test programme on both cars today, which was quite productive.  At the end, Antonio put new tyres on and did a respectable time; second quickest in the afternoon.  Ricardo had a small problem with his car so we decided not to run new tyres in the afternoon and save them for tomorrow.  I would expect both drivers to be somewhere near the top tomorrow."

FIA INTERNATIONAL FORMULA 3000 OFFICIAL TEST AT BARCELONA
Day One Times

   Driver                  Team                            Morning Time     Afternoon Time
1 S. Bourdais         Super Nova Racing        1:31.096            1:32.852
2 E. Toccacelo       Coloni F3000                1:31.494            1:34.611
3 G. Bruni              Arden                           1:31.733            1:31.709
4 A. Pizzonia         Petrobras Junior Team   1:31.959            1:32.066
5 Z. Baumgartner    Nordic Racing               1:32.731            1:33.179
6 J. Janis               Arden                           1:32.881            1:32.910
7 Ricardo Sperafico Petrobras Junior Team  1:33.207            1:35.256
8 J. Camathias       NordicRacing                1:33.319            1:33.218
9 Rodrigo Sperafico Astromega                   1:33.377
10 J. Melo Jr Durango                                 1:34.353             1:33.421
11 Y. Schroeder      Coloni F3000                1:35.214             1:33.528
12 Babalus             Coloni F3000                1:35.050             1:33.953
13 B. Wirdheim      Super Nova Racing        1:34.373             1:34.350
14 T. Niemarnik      Durango                       1:34.956              1:36.052
15 N. Kiesa            Astromega                   1:35.391
16 A. Muller           Astromega                    1:39.692