Jerez, day 3: Raikkonen raises the bar

In sweltering conditions, Raikkonen spent most of the day tyre testing and in total covered 84 laps. His running was interrupted by two spins and a number of red flags caused by a series of engine failures for his rivals. The most spectacular of these affected Juan Pablo Montoya, who managed just three laps before his BMW V10 let go to such an extent that some of the rear end of his car was fried and his running was over for the day.

Mika Salo ended the test with the second fastest time for Toyota, albeit a second behind Raikkonen. Like many of the drivers he was working on set-up evaluation. Jarno Trulli was third fastest for Renault and he too did set-up work as well as some electrical development.

David Coulthard was the best part of two seconds slower than his team-mate in fourth, while Luciano Burti was fifth fastest in a Ferrari F2001. Fernando Alonso had two engine blows and was limited to just 20 laps. On the second occasion the Spaniard dragged his Renault back to the pits coating the track with oil and causing the session to be stopped as the racing line was cleaned up.

Olivier Panis tested a further revision of Honda's Canada-spec engine, but he too had an engine blow, while Patrick Lemarie continued testing the 'Athena' Honda car for BAR. Pedro de la Rosa ran a revised Cosworth engine and reported no problems, and he was eighth fastest.

De la Rosa hands over to Eddie Irvine tomorrow, as Raikkonen does for Alex Wurz and Salo to Ryan Briscoe. Panis will also be absent on the final day of pre-European GP testing


Kimi Raikkonen McLaren-Mercedes M 1m18.876s 84
Mika Salo Toyota M 1m19.828s 55
Jarno Trulli Renault M 1m20.549s 63
David Coulthard McLaren-Mercedes M 1m20.610s 63
Luciano Burti Ferrari* B 1m20.668s 101
Fernando Alonso Renault M 1m20.848s 20
Olivier Panis BAR-Honda B 1m21.152s 54
Pedro de la Rosa Jaguar M 1m21.852s 53
Patrick Lemarie BAR-Honda* B 1m23.791s
Juan Pablo Montoya Williams-BMW M no time

M = Michelin
B = Bridgestone
* denotes 2001 car