Raikkonen sets Jerez pace on final day

With air temperatures peaking at 45 degrees Centigrade, the quickest times of the day were set in the morning before virtually everyone knuckled down for tyre work.

Raikkonen ended the day on top, just more than one tenth of a second ahead of Klien, who had been doing some low fuel runs in the morning. The lap time flattered the performance of the Red Bull Racing car, however, with the RB2's long run pace not being as strong over the rest of the day.

Rubens Barrichello maintained Honda Racing's improved form from Thursday, when he had been quickest overall, to set the third fastest time. The Brazilian said he was upbeat about the progress made this week, both in terms of tyres and in improving the handling of the RA106.

"It was good," he told autosport.com. "We worked on the tyres for Germany and Hungary and we also carried on with the work I did yesterday. The braking stability has improved, it is better, and we have improved the car. Now, we will see..."

Heikki Kovalainen was fourth fastest, but brought the final red flag of the day out just before 4pm when he stopped on the track with a suspected engine problem. Teammate Fernando Alonso was sixth, having been drafted into the test at the last minute.

Nico Rosberg ended the day fifth overall as he evaluated tyres for the next three races, but his running was interrupted by gearbox problems which stopped him conducting as extensive an evaluation as he would have liked.

BMW had a far from convincing day, as they appeared to slip back from the kind of strong form they have shown in recent races. Robert Kubica was eighth fastest, after focusing on longer-term developments, while Jacques Villeneuve was two places further back.

Speaking about the test, Villeneuve said: "We did not have the pace we had last time we were here, I am not quite sure why that is, but we did lots of tyres for the coming races. We will have to see where we are, because it is hard to tell..."

The day was not a big success for Toyota either, whose programme on Thursday had been affected by Ricardo Zonta suffering a big engine fire on his first lap out of the pits.

Ralf Schumacher, focusing on tyre work for Germany and Hungary, could only set the 12th fastest time after losing track time when he stopped with smoke pouring out the back of the car. The problem was believed to relate to overheating in the exhaust area.

Teammate Jarno Trulli only got running just before 2pm, after the replacement TF106B that the team flew in because of Zonta's incident got delayed at customs.

Today's times:

Pos  Driver        Team                      Time      Laps
 1.  Raikkonen     McLaren-Mercedes     (M)  1:17.199    76
 2.  Klien         Red Bull-Ferrari     (M)  1:17.320   100
 3.  Barrichello   Honda                (M)  1:17.391   104
 4.  Kovalainen    Renault              (M)  1:17.461    85
 5.  Rosberg       Williams-Cosworth    (B)  1:17.520   122
 6.  Alonso        Renault              (M)  1:17.774   119
 7.  Davidson      Honda                (M)  1:17.885   111
 8.  Kubica        BMW-Sauber           (M)  1:18.075    62
 9.  Paffett       McLaren-Mercedes     (M)  1:18.328   137
10.  Villeneuve    BMW-Sauber           (M)  1:18.741    80
11.  Speed         Toro Rosso-Cosworth  (M)  1:18.774    94
12.  R.Schumacher  Toyota               (B)  1:19.083    95
13.  Albers        MF1-Toyota           (B)  1:19.139    98
14.  Zonta         Toyota               (B)  1:19.955    54

All Timing Unofficial