Schumacher Fastest in Practice 3 - Imola

In similar conditions to Friday, with temperatures of 14 degrees Celsius, Schumacher set a time of 1:21.356 to put the lead Ferrari more than one-and-a-half seconds clear of the rest of the field.

He and teammate Barrichello completed a total of 22 laps as the team pushed to find improvements in the set-up of the car after its disappointing debut in Bahrain two weeks ago.

But Schumacher showed its potential as he finished 1.529 seconds ahead of Barrichello with Felipe Massa, in the Ferrari-engined Sauber, up in third place less than a tenth off his Brazilian rival.

Kimi Raikkonen was fourth for McLaren with Mark Webber fifth in his Williams and Vitantonio Liuzzi continued his preparation for his debut race with a solid sixth fastest time, albeit more than two-and-a-half seconds off Schumacher.

Giancarlo Fisichella finished seventh fastest in his Renault with Ralf Schumacher eighth for Toyota, Alex Wurz, in the second McLaren, ninth and Nick Heidfeld, in the second Williams, completing the top ten.

Most of the teams spent the early part of the session in the garages as Rubens Barrichello took the lead with a time of 1:24.839 and with 15 minutes to go only five drivers had set a lap time and 11 had completed an out-in lap.

Barrichello improved his time then Schumacher moved ahead by 2.4 seconds as Ferrari dominated the running in a bid to secure more data on their developing F2005 machine.

Narain Karthikeyan made a mistake on one of his flying laps and spun his Jordan at high speed across a gravel trap but was able to return to the track and head back to the pits.

More cars came out as the session but World Championship leader Fernando Alonso did not complete a lap in his Renault as he continued to preserve his engine life for the race itself.

Pos  Driver        Team                  Time                  Laps
 1.  M.Schumacher  Ferrari           (B)  1:21.356                8
 2.  Barrichello   Ferrari           (B)  1:22.885  +    1.529   14
 3.  Massa         Sauber-Petronas   (M)  1:22.971  +    1.615    6
 4.  Raikkonen     McLaren-Mercedes  (M)  1:23.723  +    2.367    6
 5.  Webber        Williams-BMW      (M)  1:23.788  +    2.432    4
 6.  Liuzzi        Red Bull-Cosworth (M)  1:23.894  +    2.538   17
 7.  Fisichella    Renault           (M)  1:24.120  +    2.764    3
 8.  R.Schumacher  Toyota            (M)  1:24.156  +    2.800    4
 9.  Wurz          McLaren-Mercedes  (M)  1:24.262  +    2.906    7
10.  Heidfeld      Williams-BMW      (M)  1:24.341  +    2.985    4
11.  Coulthard     Red Bull-Cosworth (M)  1:24.523  +    3.167   13
12.  Button        BAR-Honda         (M)  1:24.757  +    3.401    5
13.  Sato          BAR-Honda         (M)  1:24.770  +    3.414    6
14.  Karthikeyan   Jordan-Toyota     (B)  1:25.148  +    3.792    5
15.  Monteiro      Jordan-Toyota     (B)  1:25.197  +    3.841   12
16.  Villeneuve    Sauber-Petronas   (M)  1:25.393  +    4.037    6
17.  Trulli        Toyota            (M)  1:25.730  +    4.374    3
18.  Albers        Minardi-Cosworth  (B)  1:27.658  +    6.302   10
19.  Friesacher    Minardi-Cosworth  (B)  1:27.854  +    6.498    7
20.  Alonso        Renault           (M)  No Time                  

All timing unofficial