Alonso Fastest in Practice 3

Alonso set a time of 1:34.715 to finish 0.168 ahead of World Champion Michael Schumacher's Ferrari, with Renault's Giancarlo Fisichella third.

McLaren driver Kimi Raikkonen finished fourth fastest, with Toyota putting in a good showing as Jarno Trulli finished fifth, just ahead of his teammate Ralf Schumacher.

Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya finished seventh fastest in the second McLaren but he was more than one second off the lead pace while Jenson Button finished eighth in the lead BAR-Honda.

German Nick Heidfeld led his Australian teammate Mark Webber as the Williams duo completed the top ten in ninth and tenth respectively, while Anthony Davidson, brought in to replace Takuma Sato at BAR, finished 14th.

The session began with temperatures of 30 degrees Celsius and a humidity of 60 percent but the rising sun suggested that the breezy conditions would make way for warmer temperatures later in the day.

World Champion Schumacher spun his Ferrari at turn four after 25 minutes of the 45-minute session but he was able to continue as his brother Ralf sat at the top of the timesheets for Toyota.

Alonso moved to the top as the pack shuffled but the Renault driver managed to keep ahead of his rivals to clock the fastest time of the morning in an incident-free session.

Pos  Driver        Team                  Time                  Laps
 1.  Alonso        Renault           (M)  1:34.715                5
 2.  M.Schumacher  Ferrari           (B)  1:34.883  +    0.168   10
 3.  Fisichella    Renault           (M)  1:34.930  +    0.215    6
 4.  Raikkonen     McLaren-Mercedes  (M)  1:35.054  +    0.339    9
 5.  Trulli        Toyota            (M)  1:35.573  +    0.858    6
 6.  R.Schumacher  Toyota            (M)  1:35.645  +    0.930   10
 7.  Montoya       McLaren-Mercedes  (M)  1:35.850  +    1.135    8
 8.  Button        BAR-Honda         (M)  1:36.162  +    1.447    7
 9.  Heidfeld      Williams-BMW      (M)  1:36.434  +    1.719    3
10.  Webber        Williams-BMW      (M)  1:36.465  +    1.750    5
11.  Coulthard     Red Bull-Cosworth (M)  1:36.888  +    2.173   11
12.  Barrichello   Ferrari           (B)  1:36.903  +    2.188    7
13.  Massa         Sauber-Petronas   (M)  1:36.987  +    2.272    6
14.  Davidson      BAR-Honda         (M)  1:37.049  +    2.334   12
15.  Klien         Red Bull-Cosworth (M)  1:37.204  +    2.489   10
16.  Villeneuve    Sauber-Petronas   (M)  1:37.850  +    3.135    6
17.  Karthikeyan   Jordan-Toyota     (B)  1:38.444  +    3.729   11
18.  Monteiro      Jordan-Toyota     (B)  1:39.349  +    4.634   12
19.  Friesacher    Minardi-Cosworth  (B)  1:41.398  +    6.683   15
20.  Albers        Minardi-Cosworth  (B)  1:42.023  +    7.308   16

All timing unofficial