Free practice 4: Schuey still on top
A brief shower midway through free practice four ensured that Ferrari goes into qualifying for the first race of the season having been quickest in every session. The rain quickly passed, but the damp track prevented anyone from seriously challenging Michael Schumacher's best time of 1m26.177s
The pit lane talk has turned from discussing Ferrari's dominance, which appears to have been taken for granted, to that of the weather. Ferrari themselves admit there is a good chance of rain in Melbourne this afternoon, and showers have disrupted practice throughout the weekend.
Humidity is 70 percent, and a shower mid-way through the session meant that times didn't come down in the last 25 minutes. Schumacher didn't improve his time from today's earlier session, and skipped through a gravel trap as the rain began to fall. Team-mate Rubens Barrichello, meanwhile, halved the gap to the world champion to give the Brazilian added hope ahead of qualifying.
The Williams-BMW squad made a step in the right direction and leapfrogged ahead of McLaren in the final free practice session, but Juan Pablo Montoya was over a second slower than Barrichello, with Ralf Schumacher just three-hundredths in arrears of his Colombian team-mate. McLaren-Mercedes have either kept their powder very dry or are struggling to find the pace. David Coulthard and Kimi Raikkonen slipped to fifth and sixth, with the Scot heading the Finn by a tenth.
Nick Heidfeld's Sauber was seventh fastest, only for his C21 to expire in almost exactly the same place as it did in the earlier session. Other noteworthy improvements came from Jacques Villeneuve, who moved his BAR up to eighth ahead of team-mate Olivier Panis, and Giancarlo Fisichella slotted his Jordan into the tail of the top ten.
Felipe Massa, the top rookie, ended the session 11th in the second Sauber, ahead of Renault duo Jarno Trulli and Jenson Button. Arrows-Cosworth pairing Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Enrique Bernoldi sandwiched Allan McNish's Toyota in 14th and 16th respectively.
Jaguar's Eddie Irvine was next up, ahead of the second Toyota of Mika Salo. Neither Mark Webber (Minardi), Pedro de la Rosa (Jaguar) or Alex Yoong (Minardi) could better Takuma Sato's time from the earlier session. Sato will use the spare Jordan after crashing his race car this morning.
Dark clouds continue to cast their shadow over Albert Park and there is a strong chance of rain falling during qualifying.
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