British American Racing today commenced an important five-day test in South Africa. On a very hot circuit and in front of more than 27,000 spectators, Jacques Villeneuve and the British American Racing-Supertec 01 completed 56 laps in the course of the day. Despite an initial hold-up due to minor systems problems, Villeneuve made good progress and recorded a best lap time of 1 min 25.68 secs. The team concentrated on engine and gearbox mapping, as well as general set-up work, in preparation for an endurance test scheduled to start tomorrow. The 1997 Formula One World Champion will drive during the first three days of the planned programme while young Brazilian, Ricardo Zonta, takes over the wheel for the final two days.

Jacques Villeneuve: "It's good to feel some sun and to be in the heat! It is so cold in Europe that it's difficult to check on possible overheating problems, for example, and coming here is helpful, especially as we approach the first race. I am happy with our work today as we did a lot of laps - the most we've done in a test day so far - and the car proved to be reliable." Craig Pollock, Managing Director, British American Racing: "After a slow start, it turned out to be a very successful day because the reliability of the car seems to be building up. The team is coming closer and closer together and seems to be working very well as a unit. Taking into account the temperatures we're running in, we can be happy with the number of laps we did and with our times."

Jock Clear, Senior Race Engineer, British American Racing: "We had a couple of small issues to deal with earlier this morning, but once we got started we had a virtually trouble-free day. It is difficult to do any performance work on a dirty circuit like this, so much of the programme today concentrated on systems checks and mapping work with Supertec, which went very well. All in all, we're happy with the way things are going."