Kovalainen fastest as Sepang test ends

The Finn, who had a disappointing F1 debut in Australia and was bottom of the timesheets on Thursday, set a confidence-boosting time that was four hundredths of a second faster that Ferrari's Felipe Massa.

With drivers clearly trying out new tyre runs ahead of next weekend's race, Anthony Davidson was a surprise third fastest as Super Aguri's SA07 proved that the form it showed in Australia was not a flash in the pan.

Nico Rosberg was fourth fastest for Williams, with the team having stated this week that they wanted to work on their pace over a single lap following their disappointing qualifying performance in Australia.

Toyota's Franck Montagny was fifth quickest, ahead of BMW Sauber's Nick Heidfeld and Honda Racing's Jenson Button, who only took part in the morning session.

Lewis Hamilton completed his pre-Malaysian GP preparation in the morning to set the eighth quickest time, before handing over his McLaren to Pedro de la Rosa in the afternoon.

There were a total of five red flags during the session, two of them caused by Kovalainen, who stopped on track at 14:40 and then again at at 15:30.

Heidfeld forced the session to be red-flagged just four minutes in, when he suffered an engine-related problem.

Hamilton was next when he suffered an oil leak around noon, and Mark Webber followed suit two hours later when his Red Bull RB3 came to a halt on track.

The session was again hit by rain, with a downpour around 3pm.

Today's times:

Pos  Driver        Team                    Time     Laps
 1.  Kovalainen    Renault            (B)  1:35.767   55
 2.  Massa         Ferrari            (B)  1:35.808   72
 3.  Davidson      Super Aguri-Honda  (B)  1:36.787   68
 4.  Rosberg       Williams-Toyota    (B)  1:37.002  104
 5.  Montagny      Toyota             (B)  1:37.206   78
 6.  Heidfeld      BMW Sauber         (B)  1:37.318   70
 7.  Button        Honda              (B)  1:37.326   37
 8.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes   (B)  1:37.448   43
 9.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault   (B)  1:37.778   42
10.  Liuzzi        Toro Rosso-Ferrari (B)  1:38.542   56
11.  Klien         Honda              (B)  1:39.176   25
12.  de la Rosa    McLaren-Mercedes   (B)  1:39.303   24

All Timing Unofficial