Practice 3: Normal service is resumed

The Ferrari star completed only just over a dozen laps, but produced two laps good enough to top the time sheets. Schumacher's original effort made him the first driver to dip into the 1m34s all weekend, before he went out again with just a eight minutes left in the 45-miunte session to marginally better it with a 1m34.711s.

Schumacher nearest rival was McLaren ace Mika Hakkinen, entering his final Grand Prix before his sabbatical year, who set a 1m35.043s lap.

Another Ferrari versus McLaren battle looks likely once more as Schumacher's team-mate Rubens Barrichello pipped McLaren's David Coulthard to third position.

Williams duo Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya were fifth and sixth ahead of McLaren-bound Sauber ace Kimi Raikkonen.

Britain's Jenson Button impressed by again outgunning team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella to be ninth overall for the resurgent Benetton team.

Veteran Jean Alesi, racing in his final grand prix, sat out most of the session alongside Jordan team-mate Jarno Trulli. The Frenchman set the fastest time in practice yesterday, and the team only sent the duo out for an installation run in the dying minutes of this morning's session.

"We're already pretty confident for qualifying, so we don't feel the need to do running now," said Trulli. "We want to save our Honda qualifying engines so we don't get any performance drop off in the session that matters."

For Practice Session 3 results click here.