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Raikkonen Fastest in Practice 3 - China

Raikkonen led the way for McLaren in Saturday morning's opening practice for Sunday's Chinese Grand Prix when he finished just ahead of teammate Juan Pablo Montoya

Finn Raikkonen set a time of 1:34.253 to lead Montoya, who ran wide on his final run, by just 0.193 seconds as McLaren displayed the performance that could net them an 11th win this weekend.

But Renault proved they are ready to fight all the way for the constructors' title by setting next best times with Giancarlo Fisichella third and his teammate Fernando Alonso in fourth.

Mark Webber put his Williams into fifth place with Jenson Button sixth for BAR-Honda and David Coulthard seventh in his Red Bull Racing machine.

Takuma Sato, in his last race for BAR-Honda, finished eighth fastest with Felipe Massa, in his last race for Sauber, in ninth and Antonio Pizzonia tenth for Williams.

Pizzonia made a mistake at turn nine and stopped out on the circuit after spinning his Williams through 180 degrees then Michael Schumacher spun at turn two then ran wide at turn 14.

Jarno Trulli had an off, also at turn 14, in his Toyota, and Minardi pair Christijan Albers and Robert Doornbos both ran wide at turns 13 and 11 respectively and Christian Klien failed to set a time.

Pos  Driver         Team                  Time                  Laps
 1.  Raikkonen     McLaren-Mercedes  (M)  1:34.253                6
 2.  Montoya       McLaren-Mercedes  (M)  1:34.446  +    0.193    6
 3.  Fisichella    Renault           (M)  1:34.472  +    0.219    8
 4.  Alonso        Renault           (M)  1:34.631  +    0.378    4
 5.  Webber        Williams-BMW      (M)  1:34.749  +    0.496   12
 6.  Button        BAR-Honda         (M)  1:35.004  +    0.751    6
 7.  Coulthard     Red Bull-Cosworth (M)  1:35.296  +    1.043    9
 8.  Sato          BAR-Honda         (M)  1:35.461  +    1.208    8
 9.  Massa         Sauber-Petronas   (M)  1:35.532  +    1.279    9
10.  Pizzonia      Williams-BMW      (M)  1:35.675  +    1.422   13
11.  M.Schumacher  Ferrari           (B)  1:35.981  +    1.728   10
12.  Villeneuve    Sauber-Petronas   (M)  1:35.982  +    1.729    8
13.  Barrichello   Ferrari           (B)  1:35.994  +    1.741   10
14.  Trulli        Toyota            (M)  1:36.100  +    1.847   13
15.  R.Schumacher  Toyota            (M)  1:36.251  +    1.998   10
16.  Monteiro      Jordan-Toyota     (B)  1:37.555  +    3.302    6
17.  Karthikeyan   Jordan-Toyota     (B)  1:37.563  +    3.310   10
18.  Doornbos      Minardi-Cosworth  (B)  1:38.072  +    3.819    6
19.  Albers        Minardi-Cosworth  (B)  1:38.697  +    4.444   10
20.  Klien         Red Bull-Cosworth (M)  No Time                  

All timing unofficial

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