Piquet tops final day in Barcelona

The Renault driver, who had tested for two of the three days as he worked on turning his so far disappointing rookie season around, completed 112 laps and beat second-placed McLaren test driver Pedro de la Rosa by 0.4 seconds.

The Spaniard caused the last of today's five red flags when he stopped with a front wing problem in the final hour.

Having been quickest for Ferrari on both Thursday and Friday, Luca Badoer was third today and caused a stoppage of his own when he ran out of fuel at the end of the pitlane. But the Italian test driver said he was satisfied overall with what he had accomplished this week.

"It was a generally positive test," Badoer said. "We were able to work continuously and without any major technical problems. We saw interesting results from some new components, which might prove useful in the forthcoming races.

"On top of that, we also got through everything we had planned in terms of engine reliability work."

Mark Webber (Red Bull) and Timo Glock (Toyota) completed the top five.

Nick Heidfeld was only sixth-fastest for BMW, but felt he had made good progress with the tyre warm-up issues that have blighted his qualifying performances at recent Grands Prix.

Despite rain being forecast for today, in the event only a brief shower fell during late morning.

The day saw five red flags in total, with Williams test driver Nico Hulkenberg having a minor excursion at Turn 4, and both Webber and Toro Rosso's Sebastian Vettel joining de la Rosa and Badoer in stopping with mechanical problems.

Pos  Driver       Team                     Time      Laps
 1.  Piquet       Renault             (B)  1:20.076  112
 2.  De la Rosa   McLaren-Mercedes    (B)  1:20.402  82
 3.  Badoer       Ferrari             (B)  1:20.680  63
 4.  Webber       Red Bull-Renault    (B)  1:21.037  92
 5.  Glock        Toyota              (B)  1:21.158  86
 6.  Heidfeld     BMW Sauber          (B)  1:21.295  88
 7.  Barrichello  Honda               (B)  1:21.672  83
 8.  Hulkenberg   Williams-Toyota     (B)  1:21.674  60
 9.  Vettel       Toro Rosso-Ferrari  (B)  1:21.880  72

All timing unofficial