Raikkonen fastest in pre-Monaco test

The Ferrari driver eclipsed Lewis Hamilton's best effort from the first day to set a fastest lap of one minute 05.381 seconds - less than one tenth of a second ahead of McLaren's Heikki Kovalainen.

Robert Kubica, keen to get his team back fighting McLaren and Ferrari after a disappointing Turkish Grand Prix, was third quickest - just more than four tenths behind Kovalainen.

David Coulthard continued to show the improving form of Red Bull Racing's RB4 to set the fourth fastest time, ahead of Jenson Button in the Honda Racing RA108 and Sebastien Bourdais in the new STR3.

Scuderia Toro Rosso will have taken great heart from the performance of the STR3, which was able to complete a race distance in the afternoon ahead of its scheduled debut in the Monaco Grand Prix.

Jarno Trulli was seventh fastest, ahead of Nelson Piquet and Kazuki Nakajima. Force India duo Adrian Sutil and Giancarlo Fisichella were at the bottom of the timesheets after sharing their car over the day.

The day marked one of those rare occasions when a test was not interrupted by red flags.

The test continues tomorrow using a different configuration of the Paul Ricard circuit that will simulate the low-downforce settings required for the Canadian Grand Prix.

Today's times:

Pos  Driver        Team                      Time      Laps
 1.  Raikkonen     Ferrari              (B)  1:05.381  102
 2.  Kovalainen    McLaren-Mercedes     (B)  1:05.471   89
 3.  Kubica        BMW-Sauber           (B)  1:05.905  135
 4.  Coulthard     Red Bull-Renault     (B)  1:06.001   82
 5.  Button        Honda                (B)  1:06.091  155
 6.  Bourdais      Toro Rosso-Ferrari   (B)  1:06.125  110
 7.  Trulli        Toyota               (B)  1:06.205  120
 8.  Piquet        Renault              (B)  1:06.355  193
 9.  Nakajima      Williams             (B)  1:07.080  129
10.  Sutil         Force India-Ferrari  (B)  1:07.104   56
11.  Fisichella    Force India-Ferrari  (B)  1:07.123   64


All Timing Unofficial