Practice 4: Button flies

It was a Ferrari 1-2 early on (Schuey ahead of Rubens Barrichello) before the Toyota of Olivier Panis split them up. Then it was time for his team-mate Cristiano da Matta to grab the glory, setting the second fastest time of the weekend (at that point, anyway) at 1m10.895s to take the top spot.

Schuey came back out to stamp his authority on proceedings, taking the fastest time down to 1m10.566s. Barrichello almost matched it on 1m10.712 a few minutes later.

Cue Button, who stormed around the Indy road course in 1m10.056s. Then Schumacher tried to beat it, but could only better Takuma Sato's 1m10.251s lap with his tour of 1m10.199s. It ended Button, Schuey, Sato and Barrichello.

Juan Pablo Montoya was fifth fastest for Williams-BMW, the Colombian the quickest through the start/finish straight speed trap at 203.5mph. Fernando Alonso was sixth fastest, with the earlier impressive da Matta slipping to seventh.

Ralf Schumacher (Williams), Jarno Trulli (Renault) and Kimi Raikkonen (McLaren) rounded out the top 10, ahead of Panis, David Coulthard (McLaren) and Christian Klien's Jaguar. Nick Heidfeld struck back for Jordan in this session, to take 14th.

Mark Webber suffered a spectacular off in his Jaguar, the Australian losing control of his R5 under braking for Turn 6. The car swapped ends on him, and slewed sideways across the gravel before nosing gently into the tyrewall. He was unhurt, although the car will require extensive repairs before qualifying.

Behind 15th placed Webber came Giorgio Pantano's Jordan and the Saubers of Giancarlo Fisichella and Felipe Massa, which have really struggled today, and the Minardis of Zsolt Baumgartner and Gianmaria Bruni.