David Coulthard was also on track for the Milton-Keynes based outfit, but finished the day right at the bottom of the times. DC will conclude Red Bull's programme on Friday.

Further down the order, Pedro de la Rosa was sixth in the second McLaren MP4-21, with Nelson Piquet seventh and multiple world champion, Michael Schumacher eighth. All three used the slick tyres on-and-off and there was little between them on the timesheets.

Piquet, who also worked on start procedures without traction control, and chassis set-ups without electronic driver aids was pleased with his day's running: "We had a good day, made progress with the car and I did a lot of laps, which is always very positive," he noted.

"I think this was an encouraging session for us, and the team collected some interesting data, which was the main objective."

Renault's chief test engineer, Christian Silk was also happy with their final day of testing: "We worked well. The team skipped its lunch break to get the most out of our final day of testing, so thank you to everybody! The team never lets its head go down this year, in spite of all the difficulties we faced, and once again today they gave the absolute maximum. We collected a lot of interesting data today, and our focus is already firmly on 2008."

Of the rest, Honda's Rubens Barrichello was ninth, with Heidfeld tenth and then Williams's Nico Rosberg. Rosberg notched up 65 laps, while Kazuki Nakajima, who was 15th overall, did just 39, the least of any one runner on track.

"Kazuki rejoined the test today and worked on set-up developments with Nico Rosberg in the interim FW29Bs," explained Williams test team manager, Dickie Stanford. "Although hindered by several red flags, it was another helpful day for the team. Both drivers will return tomorrow for the final test day of 2007."

In between the Williams' of Rosberg and Nakajima were the two Toro Rosso's of Sebastian Vettel and Sebastien Bourdais and the Toyota of Jarno Trulli.

Trulli took over from Kamui Kobayashi and resumed the programme started by him on Wednesday, focusing on developing the new rear end and working with the 2008 standard ECU for the first time.

"It was a positive day and it was good to be back in the car," said the Italian. "We ran through all our planned programme running with the 2008 ECU and rear end of the car. This was the first time I have driven with the 2008 standard ECU but of course I have a lot of experience of driving without traction control. The main task was to put in a lot of mileage which have successfully done today. We concentrated on finding new things with the set-up and improving the general ECU settings. All in all it was quite a good day."

Toyota's senior chassis general manager, Pascal Vasselon was also content, even if Glock was delayed slightly in the other car due to a hydraulic issue: "Again we completed a lot of work today, although Timo did suffer a delay in the morning while a hydraulic issue was repaired," Vasselon confirmed.