Schumacher Again on Top at Valencia - Day Seven

World Champion Michael Schumacher topped the timesheets for the second consecutive day at the Valencia circuit, where three teams continued testing on Sunday.

The Ferrari star, who drove for the first time at the Ricardo Tormo circuit on Saturday, was slightly faster than yesterday and finished the session more than one tenth of a second ahead of his brother Ralf, who was at the wheel of the first of the three Williams on track. Brazilian Rubens Barrichello could not test today after his heavy shunt on Saturday, as his Ferrari was sent back to Italy to be repaired.

Brazilian Antonio Pizzonia and teammate Marc Gene worked with the other two BMW-powered FW23 at the Spanish circuit, as the Grove-based squad put an end to a seven-day test before moving to Barcelona to start testing again.

"A seven-day test needs a massive input of resources, which makes it nearly impossible to keep all three cars running all day for this long," said BMW boss Mario Theissen. "Therefore it is even more pleasing that we managed to get through to most of our programme.

"As before in Barcelona, we generated a lot of information about the new engine from the test, things one simply can not learn while running the machine on the test bench. Considering these high demands and the richness of information we generated, it was good, and now we have the benefit of five days without testing to work in Munich."

Japanese Ryo Fukuda finished behind the Williams trio in the first of the British American Racing cars. The 22-year old French Formula Three Champion made his Formula One debut yesterday and was pleased with the opportunity.

"For me the dream is to become a regular driver one day so to be a test driver is the first step towards achieving that dream," said Fukuda, who finished the day ahead of Frenchman Olivier Panis. "It feels very strange to be driving with people that I've only ever watched on TV - it seems unreal."

Testing at the Spanish circuit will continue on Monday, but only with the Ferrari team on track.

Today's times:

Pos Driver Team-Engine Tyres Time Laps 1. M.Schumacher Ferrari (B) 1:12.636 90 2. R.Schumacher Williams-BMW (M) 1:12.773 54 3. Pizzonia Williams-BMW (M) 1:13.387 82 4. Gene Williams-BMW (M) 1:13.625 106 5. Fukuda BAR-Honda (B) 1:14.246 100 6. Panis BAR-Honda (B) 1:15.321 9 All Timing Unofficial