Alonso Fastest in Practice 3

Alonso set a time of 1:12.738 to beat Fisichella to top spot by just 0.051 seconds and Juan Pablo Montoya finished third for McLaren after missing out on a shot at the top when he spun off with seconds to go.

Montoya ended up three tenths of a second slower than Alonso with his teammate Kimi Raikkonen making it a McLaren three-four and Jenson Button finishing fifth in his BAR-Honda machine.

Rubens Barrichello, who is keen to impress in his final home race for Ferrari, finished as the fastest Brazilian in seventh, just ahead of compatriot Antonio Pizzonia, Williams' stand-in for the injured Nick Heidfeld.

Jarno Trulli finished eighth fastest for Toyota with his teammate Ralf Schumacher just behind and World Champion Michael Schumacher made it into the top ten in his Ferrari.

The session, run in temperatures of 23 degrees Celsius under hazy and cloudy skies in Sao Paulo, saw little action until late on as drivers limited their running to conserve their cars.

Narain Karthikeyan and Felipe Massa both made mistakes and went off at turn one after 40 minutes of the session and Montoya spun off in the closing seconds at turn 12 as he tried to put in a fast lap.

Pos  Driver         Team                  Time                  Laps
 1.  Alonso        Renault           (M)  1:12.738                7
 2.  Fisichella    Renault           (M)  1:12.789  +    0.051    9
 3.  Montoya       McLaren-Mercedes  (M)  1:13.050  +    0.312   10
 4.  Raikkonen     McLaren-Mercedes  (M)  1:13.088  +    0.350    6
 5.  Button        BAR-Honda         (M)  1:13.186  +    0.448    9
 6.  Barrichello   Ferrari           (B)  1:13.529  +    0.791    8
 7.  Pizzonia      Williams-BMW      (M)  1:13.795  +    1.057    8
 8.  Trulli        Toyota            (M)  1:13.869  +    1.131   12
 9.  R.Schumacher  Toyota            (M)  1:13.908  +    1.170    9
10.  M.Schumacher  Ferrari           (B)  1:13.952  +    1.214    8
11.  Sato          BAR-Honda         (M)  1:14.042  +    1.304    9
12.  Klien         Red Bull-Cosworth (M)  1:14.051  +    1.313   12
13.  Webber        Williams-BMW      (M)  1:14.112  +    1.374    8
14.  Massa         Sauber-Petronas   (M)  1:14.255  +    1.517    8
15.  Coulthard     Red Bull-Cosworth (M)  1:14.401  +    1.663    5
16.  Villeneuve    Sauber-Petronas   (M)  1:14.479  +    1.741   11
17.  Monteiro      Jordan-Toyota     (B)  1:14.851  +    2.113   11
18.  Karthikeyan   Jordan-Toyota     (B)  1:15.252  +    2.514    9
19.  Doornbos      Minardi-Cosworth  (B)  1:15.772  +    3.034    8
20.  Albers        Minardi-Cosworth  (B)  1:15.815  +    3.077   13

All timing unofficial