Button Goes Fastest at Jerez - Final Day

BAR's Jenson Button topped the times on the fourth and final day of testing at the Jerez circuit in southern Spain.

Button, however, had a troubled day, first losing his engine in the morning and later suffering problems with his car's transmission. Despite that, Button completed 106 laps, stating at the end of the day: "We ran two programmes during the test in Jerez - one for aerodynamics and one for tyres. We had a positive response from the tyre programme and have chosen our tyre option for Magny Cours.

"The temperature over the three days has been extremely hot, so sitting in a race car has been even hotter and very difficult for all the drivers on the longer runs. It was disappointing that our work was interrupted by a series of problems, however I did set the fastest time on the final day, which was encouraging, and I am looking forward to the race next weekend at Magny Cours."

Also running today for BAR was test driver Anthony Davidson, who had started testing on Wednesday and returned to the wheel of the BAR-Honda 006 after skipping yesterday's session. The British test driver took over from Japanese Takuma Sato as BAR set the fourth quickest time of the day, behind the Williams of Marc Gene and Kimi Raikkonen in the McLaren.

Spaniard Gene was less than a tenth of a second slower than Davidson as he continued his preparation in case he has to replace Ralf Schumacher at the French Grand Prix following the German's accident at Indianapolis.

Gene carried out pitstop practice and covered 114 laps while teammate Antonio Pizzonia completed only 11 and finished sixth.

Raikkonen and teammate David Coulthard wrapped up McLaren's programme with their new MP4-19B, the car they aim to use in France. Toyota were also in action with two drivers, with Cristiano da Matta outpacing Australian tester Ryan Briscoe, who was slowest for the second consecutive day.

"It's been an extremely hot week of testing ­ and the track even reached 56 degrees at one point," said da Matta. "We don't find this kind of heat everywhere we go, but it's good to test in extreme conditions because they bring different problems and they give us a chance to learn things for the future ­ particularly on cooling, tyre wear and degradation."

Today's times:

Pos Driver Team-Engine Tyres Time Laps 1. Button BAR-Honda (M) 1:17.255 106 2. Gene Williams-BMW (M) 1:17.308 114 3. Raikkonen McLaren-Mercedes (M) 1:17.471 85 4. Davidson BAR-Honda (M) 1:17.666 91 5. Coulthard McLaren-Mercedes (M) 1:17.901 89 6. Pizzonia Williams-BMW (M) 1:18.856 11 7. da Matta Toyota (M) 1:18.890 130 8. Briscoe Toyota (M) 1:18.906 102 All Timing Unofficial

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