Fisichella Fastest in Practice 3

Fisichella, who has taken second best to Spanish teammate Alonso all season, set a time of 1:15.605 to finish 0.026 seconds ahead of second-placed Michael Schumacher.

But the crowds who flocked to see Championship leader Alonso in action were left disappointed as the Renault driver sat out most of the 45-minute session and failed to set a lap time.

Ralf Schumacher finished third for Toyota after leading for most of the session with Rubens Barrichello, in the second Ferrari, 0.399 seconds off the lead time in fourth.

Vitantonio Liuzzi narrowly beat Red Bull Racing teammate David Coulthard to fifth place, with the Scot finishing within a tenth off the Italian to claim sixth fastest time.

Juan Pablo Montoya, who crashed heavily on Friday afternoon, was back in his McLaren car and finished seventh, just ahead of his teammate Kimi Raikkonen, who claimed eighth.

And the drivers went in team-by-team as Williams duo Nick Heidfeld and Mark Webber completed the top ten with the German getting the better of the Australian by just 0.086 seconds.

Teams were greeted with much cooler weather than they experienced on Friday when they hit the Barcelona track with temperatures of 17 degrees Celsius.

Ten of the 18-car field, reduced by two because of the ban on BAR-Honda for this weekend, had completed flying laps after half an hour of the session with Ralf Schumacher on top.

Times were much slower than the weekend's fastest lap so far of 1:15.062 set by McLaren test driver Pedro de la Rosa in the Friday practice session.

With ten minutes to run Schumacher was still top with a time of 1:16.734 while Rubens Barrichello was up in second, just 0.014 seconds off the leading time.

Michael Schumacher then went top with a time 0.999 seconds faster than his brother with Liuzzi slotting into second, half a second off the World Champion's pace.

Fisichella then went top with a few minutes to run but Schumacher, who spun 180 degrees at turn five during the session, tried to hit back but missed out by the smallest of margins.

Christijan Albers was in trouble again as he got his Minardi stuck in the gravel at turn 10 after 39 minutes and Alonso was the only driver not to run by the close of the session.

Pos  Driver        Team                  Time                  Laps
 1.  Fisichella    Renault           (M)  1:15.605                6
 2.  M.Schumacher  Ferrari           (B)  1:15.631  +    0.026   10
 3.  R.Schumacher  Toyota            (M)  1:15.860  +    0.255   10
 4.  Barrichello   Ferrari           (B)  1:16.004  +    0.399   10
 5.  Liuzzi        Red Bull-Cosworth (M)  1:16.241  +    0.636   16
 6.  Coulthard     Red Bull-Cosworth (M)  1:16.323  +    0.718   12
 7.  Montoya       McLaren-Mercedes  (M)  1:16.560  +    0.955    4
 8.  Raikkonen     McLaren-Mercedes  (M)  1:17.363  +    1.758    5
 9.  Heidfeld      Williams-BMW      (M)  1:17.615  +    2.010    7
10.  Webber        Williams-BMW      (M)  1:17.701  +    2.096   15
11.  Monteiro      Jordan-Toyota     (B)  1:17.870  +    2.265   12
12.  Karthikeyan   Jordan-Toyota     (B)  1:18.198  +    2.593    7
13.  Massa         Sauber-Petronas   (M)  1:18.209  +    2.604    7
14.  Trulli        Toyota            (M)  1:18.215  +    2.610    3
15.  Villeneuve    Sauber-Petronas   (M)  1:18.686  +    3.081    6
16.  Friesacher    Minardi-Cosworth  (B)  1:20.417  +    4.812   15
17.  Albers        Minardi-Cosworth  (B)  1:21.145  +    5.540   10
18.  Alonso        Renault           (M)  No Time                 2

All timing unofficial