Mugello test, day 4: Wilson to the fore

The last day of running at the Italian track turned into something of a young gun shoot out with both Honda-powered teams Jordan and British American Racing fielding a brace of young talent. But it was Justin Wilson, who came out on top and finished more than half a second ahead of BAR tester Darren Manning in second place.

There remains a vacant seat at the Jordan team for next year alongside Giancarlo Fisichella and Takuma Sato is thought to be the number one candidate. However, after today's (Friday's) performance, Wilson has surely done his chances no harm.

"The car was so much faster and so much easier to drive faster," Wilson told Autosport.com after switching over to Jean Alesi's EJ11 chassis. "It just all comes down to experience. I am much more constant with everything - the track, the team and the car.

"I'm very, very happy with the time today. The car was so well balanced in the morning. Unfortunately in the afternoon I had a gearbox problem. Let's see what comes out of this."

Wilson set his time early in the morning session and then proceeded to carry out development work for the rest of the day. Wilson's upturn in pace can be partly attributed to his ill-fitting race suit, which due to his 6ft3in frame was restricting his movement. A few cuts and some carefully placed gaffa tape quickly put him at ease.

Manning has been consistent all week for the BAR team and he continued that on Friday with second place. The Formula 3000 ace was unable to set a time on new tyres due to gearbox problem restricting him to just 32 laps.

"We did a lot of back to back tests on various things," said Manning, "which wasn't particularly good for lap times, but good for the team."

Narain Kathikeyan completed the most laps of the day at 78 in the second Jordan alongside Wilson. The Indian finished in third spot just under a second behind the top time.

Anthony Davidson was fourth in the second BAR and was robbed of most of the afternoon session due to a spectacular engine blow. The British Formula 3 runner-up's BAR003 was brought back to the pits dripping oil from every pore and was not fixed until 1745. That left the 22-year-old with just 15 minutes in which to beat Wilson's time and despite new tyres and several attempts he was unable to improve.

Today's running concludes testing for the teams until next year due to the winter testing ban and the F1 hopefuls must now sit and await their fates as the line-ups for next year are decided.

Michael Schumacher completed his running for the Ferrari team at Fiorano along with test driver Luca Badoer with a best lap of 59.033s. The world champion completed 63 laps and worked on the Italian team's brake light system as well as a new gearbox. "I am very happy with the work we have done this week," said Michael.

Justin Wilson, Jordan-Honda B, 1m25.40s, 55
Darren Manning, BAR-Honda B, 1m26.17s, 32
Narain Karthikeyan, Jordan-Honda B, 1m26.31s, 78
Anthony Davidson, BAR-Honda B, 1m26.56s, 43