Alonso on top at Paul Ricard

The Spaniard, fresh from victory in his home Grand Prix last weekend, set a best lap of 1:05.686 to edge out Ferrari's Felipe Massa by just two hundredths of a second.

The pair's closest challenger was Jarno Trulli in the Toyota TF106B, which was featuring updated aerodynamics from the version that ran prior to the European Grand Prix earlier this month.

All the teams were working on basic set-up and tyre evaluation for the forthcoming high-downforce Monaco Grand Prix, which demands complete different characteristics to those needed at virtually any other track on the calendar.

Behind Trulli, Kimi Raikkonen and Juan Pablo Montoya continued work on trying to lift the performance of their McLaren closer to the Renault and Ferrari.

BMW-Sauber's Nick Heidfeld was just three tenths behind Montoya, while teammate Robert Kubica brought the only red flag of the day out when his car stopped on the track.

Red Bull Racing's early season pace showed little signs of a big improvement, with Christian Klien and Robert Doornbos right at the bottom of the timesheets.

The next major update on the RB2 is not expected until the British Grand Prix, which takes place a fortnight after Monaco.

Today's times:

Pos  Driver        Team                      Time      Laps
 1.  Alonso        Renault              (M)  1:05.686  143
 2.  Massa         Ferrari              (B)  1:05.707  128
 3.  Trulli        Toyota               (B)  1:05.752  117
 4.  Kovalainen    Renault              (M)  1:05.818  174
 5.  Raikkonen     McLaren-Mercedes     (M)  1:05.996   68
 6.  Montoya       McLaren-Mercedes     (M)  1:06.466  102
 7.  Heidfeld      BMW-Sauber           (M)  1:06.566  100
 8.  Kubica        BMW-Sauber           (M)  1:06.615  124
 9.  Speed         Toro Rosso-Cosworth  (M)  1:06.725  151
10.  R.Schumacher  Toyota               (B)  1:07.009  104
11.  Klien         Red Bull-Ferrari     (M)  1:07.016   65
12.  Doornbos      Red Bull-Ferrari     (M)  1:07.760   83

All Timing Unofficial