Button Ups his Pace at Jerez

Briton Jenson Button upped the pace of his BAR-Honda 007 on Friday to top the times on the final day of this week's testing at the Jerez circuit.

Button finished with a best time of 1:15.680, just .030 seconds off the unofficial track record held by Michael Schumacher. The BAR driver, however, could not escape problems and his car stopped twice on track during the session.

The Briton's lap was the best of the week after he improved on Fernando Alonso's time from yesterday.

Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya was second quickest but over half a second behind Button. Montoya was joined today by teammate Kimi Raikkonen in the second MP4-20 after the Finn was forced to miss yesterday's session due to a problem with the suspension of his car.

Ferrari driver Michael Schumacher posted the third fastest time of the day in the F2004M as the World Champions completed their work at Jerez. Luca Badoer was also in action for the Italian squad, the test driver finishing the day slowest.

The Red Bull Racing team completed the first test with their new RB1, which was unveiled earlier this week. David Coulthard was once again the fastest of the Red Bull drivers, while Italian Vitantonio Liuzzi was seventh on the timesheets.

Mark Webber and Nick Heidfeld wrapped up Williams' work for the week, the Australian being the fastest of the two after 114 laps. Heidfeld, in the second FW27, was the busiest man with 136 laps completed.

Brazilian Ricardo Zonta was eighth and quickest of the two Toyota TF105 cars on track, outpacing German Ralf Schumacher. Zonta, who returned to action today after taking over from Italian Jarno Trulli, will be working on tyre testing over the weekend.

"I spent Tuesday doing set-up work because it was my first day driving the new car in Jerez," said Zonta. "On Wednesday we did some tyre work and some longer runs. I had one enforced stoppage with a gearbox problem but it was good to learn more about how the car behaves in race conditions.

"I returned to the cockpit on Friday to continue the work on long runs. I also completed a small shakedown of the TF104B that I will be using for some wet tyre testing here over the weekend."

BAR and Toyota will carry out wet weather testing behind closed doors over the weekend.

Today's times:

Pos Driver Team-Engine Tyres Time Laps 1. Button BAR-Honda (M) 1:15.680 130 2. Montoya McLaren-Mercedes (M) 1:16.192 96 3. M.Schumacher Ferrari (B) 1:16.662 127 4. Coulthard Red Bull-Cosworth (M) 1:16.797 101 5. Raikkonen McLaren-Mercedes (M) 1:17.356 102 6. Webber Williams-BMW (M) 1:17.411 114 7. Liuzzi Red Bull-Cosworth (M) 1:17.436 109 8. Zonta Toyota (M) 1:17.710 116 9. Heidfeld Williams-BMW (M) 1:17.921 136 10. R.Schumacher Toyota (M) 1:18.062 110 11. Bernoldi BAR-Honda (M) 1:18.578 122 12. Badoer Ferrari (B) 1:18.773 80 All Timing Unofficial

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