Racing Images was in Barcelona at Circuit de Catalunya from Tuesday to Thursday. This was one of the major tests before the new season. Teams present at the test were Ferrari, Williams, McLaren, Renault, Toyota, BAR and Sauber. Ferrari was the only team to run just with old cars as Michael Schumacher was testing the new car in Imola at the same time.

There were action on the track pretty much all the time during the three days. The days started with foggy weather which however soon cleared away. Just in Monday, when we still weren't at the circuit, the start of the test had to be postponed due to fog. After the fog the days were sunny and nicely warm.

Williams had the most variety of drivers in their cars as Ralf Schumacher, Juan-Pablo Montoya, Marc Gene, Antonio Pizzonia and Nelson Piquet jr. shared the cars. Williams encountered some problems during the days as their cars stopped onto the track a few times. All in all they were running quite a lot, though. On Tuesday Gene spun the new FW26 into the gravel at Seat hairpin. On Wednesday Gene was driving the old car as Montoya arrived to drive the new one alongside Schumacher. Montoya set the fastest time of 1:14.804 on Thursday. Antonio Pizzonia drove the new car on Thursday and also officially acts as Williams' other test pilot. Piquet jr. drove again for the team on Tuesday and Thursday. He did good lap times, although managed to damage the car on Thursday after a spin. Williams also practised pitstops with full equipment and crew.

Among Williams most of the track time was used by Toyota and Renault teams. Toyota was running virtually all the time with their drivers Cristiano da Matta and Olivier Panis. Da Matta drove a lot of laps during the days. Panis did a little less running. The new TF04 seems to be very reliable and Toyota was able to cover lots of laps. However, Panis' testing was unfortunately cut short on Thursday afternoon when he crashed heavily at turn three and had to be airlifted to hospital for checks. Fortunately, he's ok.

Renault was running with Fernando Alonso and Franck Montagny. Alonso drove the new R24 for all of the days. He encountered some problems, but all in all the Renault seems be fairly reliable. Montagny covered a lot of laps with Renault's last year's machine.

As said, Ferrari was testing with just their old cars. Rubens Barrichello drove on Tuesday and Luca Badoer joined him for Wednesday. They didn't do a massive amount of running and packed away after Wednesday.

BAR had Jenson Button testing the new just launched 006 machine. Having set a new lap record on Monday with very light car he now seemed do normal testing for the car. He had some problems during the days and also stopped onto the circuit. Also a scary moment was encountered during a re-fueling practice at the pitlane when there were huge flames due to a fuel leak. Fortunately nothing serious happened and the flames were put down immediately. Takuma Sato drove BAR's so called concept car build from the old 005 machine. On Tuesday he also ran a very light car and bettered Button's lap record from Monday. It's now 1:13.797. BAR didn't test anymore on Thursday.

McLaren had all of their driver at the tests. Their test didn't go very well as they had lot of problems. On Tuesday Kimi Räikkönen was forced to sit out the whole afternoon and ended the slowest. Also Pedro de la Rosa did just a few laps on Tuesday. On Wednesday Räikkönen could drive many times during the day. This time it was David Coulthard who got his share of the problems and he too had problems for the afternoon. And it didn't go very well for him on Thursday either when his car stopped onto the main straight after midday. He got to drive some laps towards evening, though. Alexander Wurz was running the most. McLaren's lap times from the tests where all the time at the lower end of the timesheets. Of course testing times are always testing times, but taking into account the number of problems they had it seems they haven't managed to get advantage of running the the MP4-19 earlier than other teams.

Sauber was running just with one new car. Giancarlo Fisichella drove on Tuesday, but didn't do any serious laptimes. Sauber's testing ended early on Wednesday morning as Felipe Massa crashed the new car heavily at the end of the main straight after his rear suspension failed. Like Panis he was also airlifted to hospital, but didn't suffer any injuries.