Renault still on top at Silverstone

Fisichella joined teammate Heikki Kovalainen in evaluating new rubber from their French tyre supplier - and it was its ability to get up to full operating temperature so quickly that left the team pretty impressed.

Rubens Barrichello gave his Honda Racing team a welcome morale boost with the second fastest time, as he continued to work on set-up issues to help resolve the lack of race pace they have been suffering from in recent events.

Barrichello's time was a one-off lap, however, with the RA106 clearly having shown that it is not lacking in single lap pace after Jenson Button's strong qualifying performances so far this year.

Kimi Raikkonen was third quickest for McLaren, as he finally got his hands on the latest specification engine from Mercedes-Benz. The German car manufacturer only have two of the new power-units available and, after Pedro de la Rosa hit trouble with his engine on Tuesday, it had to be shipped off for repairs.

That meant Raikkonen was forced to use the standard engine on Wednesday before the repaired unit was fitted to his car for the start of testing on Thursday.

Christian Klien enjoyed a slightly better day for Red Bull Racing as he managed to complete 42 laps, but he still suffered an engine problem in the early afternoon.

The day was dominated by a spate of red flags, as the estimated 75 percent full-throttle that is now required for Silverstone took its toll on the cars and V8 power-units.

Robert Kubica's BMW engine blew up at 9:10am, while he stopped again later in the day - as did Juan Pablo Montoya, Kovalainen and Christijan Albers.

Midland F1 test driver Adrian Sutil made his debut for the team, but it did not get off to such a good start when he brought out the red flag after running off the track at 9:30am.

He only tested until 10.30am when he stopped with a suspected mechanical problem.

Today's times:

Pos  Driver        Team                      Time     Laps
 1.  Fisichella    Renault              (M)  1:18.506  121
 2.  Barrichello   Honda                (M)  1:18.664   71
 3.  Raikkonen     McLaren-Mercedes     (M)  1:18.664   96
 4.  Kovalainen    Renault              (M)  1:19.094  102
 5.  Klien         Red Bull-Ferrari     (M)  1:19.550   42
 6.  Montoya       McLaren-Mercedes     (M)  1:19.674   40
 7.  Davidson      Honda                (M)  1:19.701  143
 8.  Liuzzi        Toro Rosso-Cosworth  (M)  1:19.998   83
 9.  Coulthard     Red Bull-Ferrari     (M)  1:20.047   81
10.  Webber        Williams-Cosworth    (B)  1:20.422   80
11.  Kubica        BMW-Sauber           (M)  1:20.925   99
12.  Albers        MF1-Toyota           (B)  1:20.978   47
13.  Wurz          Williams-Cosworth    (B)  1:21.190  107
14.  Paffett       McLaren-Mercedes     (M)  1:21.888    7
15.  Sutil         MF1-Toyota           (B)  1:25.403   11

All Timing Unofficial