Melbourne 12 March
BAR changed engine supplier to Honda for the 2000 season. The BAR-Honda 002 was introduced in London on 24 January.
Villeneuve and Zonta continued as racing drivers with Darren Manning as test driver and Patrick Lemarie as development driver.
It was immediately noted that the new car was a clear step forward compared to last years.
Ricardo finished 9th at Friday practice.
"I'm pleased with today's result, and it is very interesting that behind the Ferraris and McLarens, the times are all very close. As we would expect, the track was dirty today, but got better as the day went on. Because of the lack of grip available, we were also running quite a bit of downforce, but tomorrow, we should be able to go to a much lower level of down force, and that will make us faster on the straights."
Friday 1st practice: 13th, 1:35.076
Friday combined practice: 9th 1:33.847, 38 laps
The cars suffered from electrical component difficulties that the team had thought they had cured a long time ago. Ricardo also suffered from gearbox problems. Ricardo made laps of 1:33.436, 1:33.411 and 1:33.117. At the final attempt Ricardo lost the down force and spun at the Stewart curve ending up against the wall in a cloud of sand.
"We went the wrong way on set-up this morning and that meant we weren't able to do a back-to-back comparison between new and scrubbed tyres, which would have helped us in qualifying. We found that we had a lot of understeer on new tyres, and on my last run, when I was up on my previous best time, I had Wurz in front and lost down force as I got close to him. As a result, the back end of the car stepped out and I spun. I am also disappointed that with less fuel in the car than yesterday, I couldn't improve my time.
Saturday practice: 20th, 1:33.675, 19 laps
Qualifying: 16th, 1:33.117, 10 laps
BAR Honda adopted a one-stop strategy for fuel and tyres. As the lights turned to green Ricardo immediately moved towards the middle of the track only to move back to the right side moments later. He managed to pass Wurz (Benetton) and Heidfeld (Prost) to finish the first lap in 14th position between the Williams cars of Ralf Schumacher and Button. He gained 3 positions when de la Rosa (Arrows) crashed on lap 6 and Irvine (Jaguar) and Verstappen (Arrows) struck problems at the same time. There was a four lap safety car period and Ricardo moved up to 10th soon after the field was released as Coulthard (McLaren) retired with a blown engine.
On lap 19 Häkkinen shared his teammate's fate and Ricardo was up to 9th. On lap 29 Salo (Sauber) made his pit stop followed four laps later by Barrichello (Ferrari) so Ricardo was 7th when he made his stop on lap 35. The pit stop was not completely successful but he returned to the race in 9th position and soon gained back the lost positions as others made their pit stops. He continued in 7th position behind Button for a while before the Williams driver retired
with engine problems on lap 47. Ricardo was now in the top six but all cars from Villeneuve in 4th position to Wurz in 8th were in a close bunch and Salo managed to sneak by Ricardo at the Ascari curve on lap 50. So Ricardo took the flag in 7th position.
"I had a lot of understeer throughout the race and this cost me some time in the fast corners.
I thought I was going to finish sixth and score a point, but I couldn't do anything about Salo coming past me. I had a few problems this weekend, but today the car and engine ran perfectly.
Later Salo was disqualified because of a 2 cm too big front wing and Ricardo earned his first championship point.
Warmup: 13th, 1:34.200, 13 laps
Race: 6th, 1:34:48.455 (+ 48.488) 1 point
FL: 1:33.435 on lap 34 (11th, +1.954)
Winner: Michael Schumacher (Ferrari)