Schumacher Flies in the Wet at Barcelona - Day Three

World Champion Michael Schumacher set the pace on the third day of testing at the Barcelona circuit, where the rain disrupted the teams's progress.

Schumacher, winner of the three races of the season, joined the Barcelona test today together with Brazilian teammate Rubens Barrichello. Both men drove the F2004 car, with Schumacher finishing almost two seconds quicker than Spaniard Fernando Alonso, second fastest today.

The Renault driver continued testing the latest specification engine from the French squad togher with Italian teammate Jarno Trulli, who was seventh fastest in the second R24.

Briton Jenson Button was another of the drivers who joined the test today, the BAR driver posting the fourth fastest time of the day. Teammate Takuma Sato, who finished on top of the times yesterday, was only 13th quickest in the second Honda-powered car.

McLaren-Mercedes's drivers Alex Wurz and David Coulthard wound up fifth and sixth respectively as they both put more miles on the unreliable MP4-19. Rivals Williams were in action with three drivers, although only Ralf Schumacher and Scott Dixon set times. Spaniard Marc Gene completed only three untimed laps.

"Ralf was working on different intermediate and full wet tyre test programs, mechanical setup and traction control settings," explained Williams' chief operations engineer Sam Michael at the end of the day.

"Scott had his first outing in the wet in a Formula One car and also concentrated on wet tyre testing. He also worked on different engine maps and longer runs to investigate new components."

Brazilian Felipe Massa was ninth quickest for the Sauber team, who worked on wet tyre testing for Bridgestone and on a set-up programme in preparation for the Spanish Grand Prix.

"Unfortunately it was raining all day so that we simply couldn't run our programme," said Sauber's race engineer Mike Krack. "However, we used these weather conditions to do some Bridgestone wet tyre tests which went well. In the late afternoon the sky cleared up and we were able to work a bit on the car set-up for the Barcelona race and the C23 proved to be quite good under these conditions."

The Toyota team wrapped up a three-day test today, working with Cristiano da Matta and test driver Ricardo Zonta at the wheel of the TF104. Da Matta took over from teammate Olivier Panis while Zonta continued working at Barcelona for the third consecutive day.

"My one day of running here was disrupted by the weather, so it wasn't very productive for me," said da Matta. "Our main reason for testing was to set up for dry conditions, but on Thursday it rained for most of the day with the track surface switching between damp and wet.

"We did some wet set-up work and tried a few experiments of different traction control settings. We found a few things but we will have to do more running at Paul Ricard next week. You can work on wet set-up here, but it's very specific to this track."

Swede Bjorn Wirdheim was the only man in action for the Jaguar team, who only completed 16 laps today.

Testing at Barcelona concludes tomorrow.

Today's times:

Pos Driver Team-Engine Tyres Time Laps 1. M.Schumacher Ferrari (B) 1:23.764 51 2. Alonso Renault (M) 1:25.650 40 3. Barrichello Ferrari (B) 1:25.923 29 4. Button BAR-Honda (M) 1:26.140 36 5. Wurz McLaren-Mercedes (M) 1:26.162 56 6. Coulthard McLaren-Mercedes (M) 1:26.392 51 7. Trulli Renault (M) 1:26.966 22 8. R.Schumacher Williams-BMW (M) 1:27.028 62 9. Massa Sauber-Petronas (B) 1:28.174 24 10. Dixon Williams-BMW (M) 1:28.318 72 11. da Matta Toyota (M) 1:28.457 24 12. Zonta Toyota (M) 1:29.372 18 13. Sato BAR-Honda (M) 1:30.535 5 14. Wirdheim Jaguar-Cosworth (M) 1:31.444 16 15. Gene Williams-BMW (M) no time 3 All Timing Unofficial

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