Jerez 3: JV dominates again

Most teams carried out limited running on the damp track, but Villeneuve wasn't one of them. The French-Canadian notched up 81 laps setting a time nearly a second quicker than his nearest challengers, Ferrari duo Luca Badoer and Marc Gene. Villeneuve left the circuit with a smile on his face though as he concludes his testing for the year, but he admits that he's got a long hard winter ahead of him as he prepares physically for next season.

"It's been a good two days and this fastest time doesn't mean much but it really feels good," he said. "I forgot what it was like to be at the top of the timesheets, it's a good feeling for the end of this year's testing. But I've got a lot of training coming up over Christmas. I'm only taking a few days off, the rest of the days I will be training extremely hard."

Toyota's Ralf Schumacher was another busy driver on track completing 83 laps while team-mate Jarno Trulli was told to rest by his team after having a minor operation on his eye. The Italian will be back in action tomorrow (Saturday) while Schumacher flies off for a BMW weekend.

McLaren's Alex Wurz and Pedro de la Rosa carried out very little running because of the conditions, the pair completed just 30 or so laps each and to finish the day sixth and ninth respectively.

Christian Klien continued to carry out the work for newcomers Red Bull Racing. Neel Jani was due to take to the wheel had the track dried, but it failed to do so and the Swiss driver will instead test for the team next week.

BAR-Honda's Takuma Sato was eighth quickest, but the Japanese driver was disappointed the team was unable to complete its programme.

"For the past three days we have not driven in the dry at all and the whole purpose of this car was to get some mileage on it - we didn't cover half the programme because of the conditions," he said. "My impression of the new regulations and the car is that it is quite nervous and slippery. But the tyres and the car are not completely made for 2005 so we can't really tell. We do expect to recuperate more downforce on next year's car though."

BAR's young testers Adam Carroll and James Rossiter both went off track during the day but managed to set times on the damp track.

Jacques Villeneuve (Sauber-Petronas), M, 1m28.345s, 81 laps
Luca Badoer (Ferrari), B, 1m29.191s, 50 laps
Marc Gene (Ferrari), B, 1m29.483s, 54 laps
Ralf Schumacher (Toyota), M, 1m29.523s, 83 laps
Giancarlo Fisichella (Renault), M, 1m29.814s, 29 laps
Alex Wurz (McLaren-Mercedes), M, 1m30.151s, 33 laps
Christian Klien (Red Bull Racing), M, 1m30.379s, 86 laps
Takuma Sato, (BAR-Honda), M, 1m30.883s, 66 laps
Pedro de la Rosa (McLaren-Mercedes), M, 1m31.084s, 31 laps
James Rossiter, (BAR-Honda), M, 1m31.194s, 43
Vitantonio Liuzzi (Red Bull Racing), M, 1m31.876s, 26 laps
Franck Montagny (Renault), M, 1m31.935s, 25 laps
Enrique Bernoldi (BAR-Honda), M, 1m32.414s, 36 laps
Robert Doornbos (Jordan-Cosworth), B, 1m33.465s, 78 laps
Adam Carroll (BAR-Honda), M, 1m33.545s, laps