Imola, free practice 3: Ferrari warms the tifosi

Schumacher stopped the clocks with a 1m35.633s lap, but still managed to spin in the final seconds of the session when he clipped a treacherously slippy curve. His Brazilian team mate was just 0.055s slower.

The top eight places went two-by-two, with the McLarens of Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard in third and fourth, the Jordans of Jarno Trulli and Heinz-Harald Frentzen in fifth and sixth and the Saubers of Kimi Raikkonen and Nick Heidfeld in eighth and ninth.

The BARs of Jacques Villeneuve and Olivier Panis were ninth and 11th, with the Williams of Juan Pablo Montoya breaking the symmetry in 10th.

Arrows revelled in the conditions, with Jos Verstappen 12th and Enrique Bernoldi 13th, while Jaguar had a session of mixed fortunes: Eddie Irvine was 14th fastest, but his team mate Luciano Burti was caught out on the approach to Tosa and heavily damaged the front of his car.

Temperatures crept up to 5 degrees C in the closing minutes of the session, but with track temperatures also in the single digits, the teams face a struggle to optimise set-ups in time for this afternoon's single session of qualifying.

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