Practice 3: Barrichello heads Schu

The moral victor of the Austrian Grand Prix, Rubens Barrichello, once again pipped Ferrari team-mate Michael Schumacher to the fastest time in the third free practice session at Monaco this morning (Saturday). Ominously, the Ferraris were well over a second clear of the opposition

After Formula 1's annual Friday off at Monaco, Schumacher was straight back into the swing of things on Saturday with a mammoth 14-lap run from the start of the session. By the time he'd finished that, only the Renaults were quicker.

On his next run, however, Schumacher blitzed everyone with a 1m18.471s lap. It took a last-gasp effort from Barrichello to knock him from the top spot, with the Brazilian fastest through the first two sectors on his 1m18.385s lap.

Juan Pablo Montoya also set a late flyer, lapping his Williams-BMW in 1m19.558s to steal third place from Renault's Jarno Trulli. The latter was 0.005s faster than his team-mate Jenson Button.

Ralf Schumacher was sixth quickest in the second Williams, ahead of the McLarens of Kimi Raikkonen - who was impressive after losing a lot of track time on Thursday due to a crash - and David Coulthard.

Heinz-Harald Frentzen was ninth in his Arrows-Cosworth, ahead of the Jordan-Honda of Giancarlo Fisichella. Nick Heidfeld was 11th fastest in his Sauber-Petronas, but complained his team were "struggling again, like last year".

Toyota's Allan McNish was mightily impressive early on once again, setting the fastest time on his first flying lap of the day and catching fellow Scot Coulthard as he did so. He slipped back to 15th fastest by the end of the session, however, behind team-mate Mika Salo who was 13th.

In terms of incident, the session was very quiet. Both McNish and Minardi's Mark Webber went down the Sainte Devote escape road, while Sauber's Felipe Massa reported a close call as he struggled with understeer on old tyres.

For full practice session 3 results, click here.