Ralf Flies at Silverstone - Final Day

Williams driver Ralf Schumacher posted the fastest time of the year on the final day of testing at the Silverstone circuit.

The German driver lapped the British track in a time of 1:19.790, the quickest so far this year in testing. Schumacher, at the wheel of the FW25 car, was nearly a second quicker than the fastest of his rivals.

"We finalised a busy programme at Silverstone today with extensive tyre testing and set-up work for Montreal, as well as engine endurance running for BMW," said Williams' chief operations engineer Sam Michael at the end of the test.

"In all we managed to complete 640kms of useful work in a single day, and over the course of this test and our simultaneous programme at Monza, we have made some useful progress for Montreal and beyond."

The Renault team, who were expected to join the Silverstone test on Wednesday, completed a one-day programme after cancelling yesterday's test due to the bad weather. Today, the French squad worked with both Fernando Alonso and Jarno Trulli, the Italian outpacing the Spaniard.

"Both drivers had a very busy test programme today, which concentrated mainly on tyre development work with Michelin," said Renault's technical director Mike Gascoyne. "Fernando evaluated the tyres for the French and British Grand Prix, then focussed on chassis set-up of the R23 in the afternoon.

"Jarno worked on aerodynamics and general car set-up, together with a tyre test in preparation for the forthcoming race in Canada. Overall it was a productive test with the drivers putting in a good deal of mileage."

Giancarlo Fisichella and Ralph Firman wrapped up the Jordan team's preparations for the Canadian Grand Prix, the Italian driver outpacing his teammate by less than a tenth of a second.

Toyota also completed their three-day test with Brazilian test driver Ricardo Zonta at the wheel of the TF103 car. Zonta took over from Cristiano da Matta and concentrated on tyre testing and aerodynamic work, finishing at the bottom of the timesheets.

"The car feels very good around Silverstone," said Zonta. "We did a lot of work today in preparation for the British Grand Prix in a couple of weeks, and we also worked on improving the balance of the car to suit my driving. We did some tyre tests and the car has a very good grip level on new tyres.

"We were unlucky to have some mechanical problems at the end of the session, which shortened our running time by an hour. As a result, we couldn't quite finish our tyre test, which meant we didn't have the possibility to improve our lap time."

Today's times:

Pos Driver Team-Engine Tyres Time Laps 1. R.Schumacher Williams-BMW (M) 1:19.790 123 2. Trulli Renault (M) 1:20.633 91 3. Alonso Renault (M) 1:21.355 80 4. Fisichella Jordan-Ford (B) 1:21.644 78 5. Firman Jordan-Ford (B) 1:21.699 69 6. Zonta Toyota (M) 1:22.594 51 All Timing Unofficial

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