Prac 3: Schuey back on top

Overcast skies meant track temperature was down by some 20-degrees compared to Friday, allowing quick times once a couple of track sweeping laps had been recorded. Kimi Raikkonen recorded the only sub-1m20s lap for McLaren yesterday, but Rubens Barrichello (Ferrari) was straight into the zone with a 1m20.830s, quickly beaten by Schumacher (1m20.631s) and the BAR Jenson Button (1m20.731s).

With a couple of minutes remaining, Pizzonia took centre stage. The Brazilian has nothing to lose this weekend, with the Williams race seats seemingly fixed for 2005, so is effectively in the shop window.

The two Ferraris circulated closely at the end of the session, with Barrichello again suffering a big lock-up in Turn 3 just like he did yesterday. Schumacher then lowered his best time to 1m20.597s, setting the fastest final sector of the weekend so far. On his next lap, he went even faster and beat Pizzonia's time by a tenth with 1m20.216s, this time setting the quickest middle sector.

Pizzonia's team-mate Juan Pablo Montoya also beat Button to set the third fastest time. Behind Barrichello in fifth came the two Renaults of Jarno Trulli and last year's winner here, Fernando Alonso.

Yesterday's pace setter, Kimi Raikkonen, was surprisingly off the pace on Saturday morning. Both he and McLaren team-mate David Coulthard appeared to be hampered by locking-up Jaguars on new tyres, with DC eighth and Kimi down in 10th. They were split by Felipe Massa's surprisingly rapid Sauber.

Olivier Panis and Ricardo Zonta were 11th and 12th for Toyota, while Giancarlo Fisichella was 13th ahead of the Jaguar duo of Mark Webber and Christian Klien. Giorgio Pantano topped the Cosworth runners in his Jordan, ahead of the Minardi of Gianmaria Bruni.

Nick Heidfeld (Jordan) and Zsolt Baumgartner (Minardi) completed the runners, as BAR's Takuma Sato only completed a couple of installation laps for reasons unknown.