Free practice 4: Ferrari on top

The order remained much the same for the second 45-minute session of the morning and the opposition seemed unable to get even close to the world champion's time of 1m18.634s. But with just five minutes to go the ante was upped and the German's time suddenly began slightly more attainable.

Jordan's Jarno Trulli caused the first surprise of the session by moving up to second. The Italian then quickly dropped down the order and ended up sixth as the floodgates opened. Quick laps followed from first Barrichello and then the Sauber of Nick Heidfeld.

The young German jumped up to third place but was quickly demoted first by the McLaren of David Coulthard, who finished third, and then by his rookie team mate Kimi Raikkonen and ultimately had to settle for fifth.

Despite being the fastest man through the speed trap at 199 mph, Olivier Panis had to settle for seventh in his BAR-Honda while former world champion team mate Jacques Villeneuve wound up 10th.

Mika Hakkinen completed most of his running early in the session and therfore missed out on the late spurt of quicker laps. The Finn found himself a lowly eight after spending the majority of the session a more respectable third.

Ralf Schumacher muscled his Williams-BMW round the Circuit de Catalunya in 1m19.406 to put him ninth. The younger Schumacher looks set to struggle in qualifying as the team gets to grips with its under-developed traction control system.

The Jaguar pairing of Eddie Irvine and new boy Pedro de la Rosa seemed unable to recapture their Friday form. Irvine finished second at the end of the first day but found himself 17th at the end of free practice. De la Rosa, meanwhile, was even further back in 21st.

The Spaniard's running was cut short when just 10 minutes into the session his R2 mysteriously veered right and into the wall at the end of the pitlane leaving the car stranded and down to three wheels. A steering problem was the suspected culprit.

Link for Practice Session 4 Results click here.