Ferrari's
Kimi Raikkonen set the pace at the Paul Ricard track in the South France on Thursday as the test moved into its penultimate day.
Having been second best to
Lewis Hamilton and McLaren-Mercedes on the opening day, Kimi lowered the benchmark for the week today, his best effort a 1 minute 05.381 seconds - just over two tenths up on the time set by his chief championship rival yesterday [a 1m 05.600s].
Raikkonen was continuing with preparations for the Monaco Grand Prix and again worked on settings for the Ferrari F2008 and on the development of new aerodynamic solutions for high downforce circuits. The planned programme for these past two days was completed with no technical problems.
Heikki Kovalainen meanwhile was 'best of the rest' for
McLaren, having took over the MP4-23 from Hamilton. The Finn was also focusing on Monte Carlo, looking at set-up and working through a tyre programme.
Robert Kubica was third for
BMW Sauber, albeit nearly half a second off the pace. The Pole managed 135 tours in total, while evaluating different aero and suspension specifications and testing tyres.
"Although the short version (3.593 km) of Circuit Paul Ricard offers a significantly higher grip level than the streets of Monte Carlo, the team achieved good progress with the F1-08 car in high downforce configuration," confirmed the Swiss-based squad in its end of day report. "The
F1.08 ran without technical problems for the whole session enabling the team to finish the scheduled test programme despite a rain caused break right after lunch."
Further down the order,
David Coulthard came in fourth for
Red Bull Racing, having taken over from
Mark Webber. DC managed 82 laps and finished proceedings fractionally up on fellow Brit
Jenson Button, who was only nine hundredths slower in his
Honda.
Toro Rosso's
Sebastien Bourdais rounded out the top six and he spent the morning acclimatising to the new car, as
Sebastian Vettel ran on day 1.
