Barcelona test - day three: 13 April.

Toyota's Jarno Trulli set the pace on the third day at the Circuit de Catalunya on Thursday.

The Italian completed 81 laps in total, his best a 1 minute 14.522 seconds, just one hundredth up on Fernando Alonso, who was second for Renault. Trulli was focusing on set-up for the forthcoming grand's prix - as well as running through some aerodynamic and tyre tests, his time incidentally was the quickest of the week thus far. Despite a delay in the morning, he was pleased with his work.

"To be honest, I am happy with today's running here, even although I had some issues with the car in the morning," he said.

"We have improved the tyres and the car set-up a lot since the first two races, and finally as a result this is fitting my driving style. This is a huge improvement for me and today's results show that we are moving ahead. We still have a lot to work on, but everything has to go step by step. The team has worked hard to find the optimal solutions and I am confident that for myself I have found a good direction and that the tyres are working better with our car."

Ralf Schumacher was also on track for the Cologne based squad, however the German was a lot lower down the leader-board, 12th overall, a second slower in the sister TF106. The German ran a similar programme to Trulli, in addition to doing some pit entry practice.

"Today was relatively successful, as we got through our test programme as planned without any big problems," reflected the German. "We concentrated on tyre testing and some set-up work for Imola and the coming races. The track was busy with many cars, but in decent condition and this is similar to what we could have in Imola. In general, we have learned a lot about the tyres and the car and therefore we are working on doing our best with the package that we have. Tomorrow we will focus on long-runs and tyre testing."

Toyota's chief race and test engineer, Dieter Gass added: "We had a very good day and found some interesting tyres. From today's runs we have also been able to confirm our previous tyre choices, which is a positive step for us. Although we had some issues during the day, we managed to finish the whole test programme that we had planned with both cars - mainly working on aerodynamics, set-up and tyres. Looking forward we are pleased with the progress and will continue working hard to the results we are aiming for."

Renault meanwhile, having led the way on Wednesday, were second and sixth overall, Alonso being joined by Giancarlo Fisichella, who took over from third driver, Heikki Kovalainen. The programme for them was mainly focused on chassis set up in order to find the optimum way to exploit the Michelin tyres.

"We had a productive day once again and we completed an interesting programme on both cars," said Renault chief test engineer, Christian Silk. "The package was extremely reliable which allowed us to do lots of runs today and to complete our programme. We learned a lot about the behaviour of the R26 and made did interesting steps for the next races. Barcelona is a very good track for development work and we will have a busy day again tomorrow."

Michael Schumacher was third for the Scuderia, while concentrating on the development of new components and aerodynamic solutions, as well as finding the best set-up for the car. His team-mate, Felipe Massa in contrast continued with the endurance running done by Marc Gene over the previous days. The Brazilian also worked on Bridgestone tyre development and was a second further back.

McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen and BMW Sauber driver, Nick Heidfeld completed the top five, the former being joined by Juan Pablo Montoya in the sister MP4-21. Both McLaren drivers concentrated on evaluating the prime and option Michelin tyres for the Spanish GP whilst continuing with the set-up work carried out on day two.

Heidfeld was just four hundredths slower than Raikkonen in the BMW Sauber F1.06 and he was also significantly quicker than Jacques Villeneuve, who was a good half a second back.

"For both drivers and their engineers this was a positive day with track conditions very similar to those experienced yesterday," read a statement from the Swiss based outfit. "In the morning Nick briefly did some aero work and then in the afternoon did both set-up and tyre work. Jacques, on his first of two days at the test, did aero and set up work and also tyre evaluation work for Michelin for the Barcelona race."

Of the rest, Fisichella and Nico Rosberg came in sixth and seventh, ahead of Honda's Jenson Button and Red Bull Racing duo, David Coulthard and Christian Klien, all five drivers split by less than four tenths.

Rubens Barrichello was just on the fringes of the top ten, in eleventh, ahead of Ralf, Villeneuve, Montoya, Massa and Williams team leader, Mark Webber. Despite being at the lower end of the timesheets, the Grove based squad were pleased with their day.

"Today both Mark and Nico practised starts at the beginning of the session while also evaluating internal mechanical parts for reliability. Nico also successfully completed some back to back comparisons on new suspension parts while Mark tested software control of the transmission, before the pair both continued tyre evaluations for Imola in the afternoon. It has been a very productive test so far and we continue here tomorrow with two cars piloted by Mark and [test driver] Alex [Wurz]," confirmed Williams test team manager, Mike Condliffe.

Like on Wednesday, Toro Rosso and Super Aguri brought up the rear, the former comfortably ahead of the latter. Indeed while Scott Speed posted a 1m 16.599s lap, Takuma Sato could only manage a 1m 19.826s. Speed's programme centred on general set-up work for the forthcoming San Marino Grand Prix.

"We did some fuel level evaluation and also carried out some damper testing, as this is a very important part of the package for riding the kerbs at Imola," said STR chief engineer, Laurent Mekies. "We have completed a big mileage here in Spain and now we have a week to get the most out of the data we have gathered, before what is effectively a home race for the team, based just down the road from Imola in Faenza."

Sato however was not only again quite a way off the pace, but he did only 22 laps. Aguri chief technical officer, Mark Preston though still tried to put a positive spin on the day.

"Each test day takes us a little further up our very steep learning curve," he explained. "We had planned a number of tyre tests today however running was cut short due to hydraulic problems. We will restart testing tomorrow with Taku carrying out an important tyre construction test followed by Yuji [Ide] evaluating a number of compounds that will help the SAF1 Team better understand the envelope of the car."

Testing now concludes on Friday.

Leading times (13 April) - Barcelona:

1. Jarno Trulli Toyota-Toyota 1min 14.522secs 81 laps B
2. Fernando Alonso Renault-Renault 1min 14.532secs 106 laps M
3. Michael Schumacher Ferrari-Ferrari 1min 14.711secs 94 laps B
4. Kimi Raikkonen McLaren-Mercedes 1min 14.899secs 93 laps M
5. Nick Heidfeld BMW-Sauber 1min 14.940secs 66 laps M
6. Giancarlo Fisichella Renault-Renault 1min 15.105secs 112 laps M
7. Nico Rosberg Williams-Cosworth 1min 15.209secs 82 laps B
8. Jenson Button Honda-Honda 1min 15.292secs 150 laps M
9. Christian Klien Red Bull-Ferrari 1min 15.299secs 101 laps M
10. David Coulthard Red Bull-Ferrari 1min 15.347secs 101 laps M
11. Rubens Barrichello Honda-Honda 1min 15.388secs 133 laps M
12. Ralf Schumacher Toyota-Toyota 1min 15.410secs 73 laps B
13. Jacques Villeneuve BMW-Sauber 1min 15.547secs 97 laps M
14. Juan Montoya McLaren-Mercedes 1min 15.686secs 103 laps M
15. Felipe Massa Ferrari-Ferrari 1min 15.727secs 86 laps B
16. Mark Webber Williams-Cosworth 1min 16.019secs 108 laps B
17. Scott Speed Toro Rosso-Cosworth 1min 16.599secs 102 laps M *
18. Takuma Sato Super Aguri-Honda 1min 19.826secs 22 laps B

[M denotes Michelin tyres / B denotes Bridgestone tyres / * denotes V10 engine.]

Track conditions: Sunny, bright and dry.

All times unofficial - courtesy of official Circuit de Catalunya website.

Comparative lap time:

Spanish GP 2005:

Fastest lap: Giancarlo Fisichella Renault-Renault 1min 15.641secs