Schumacher tops the times at Jerez

Schumacher's time of 1:16.626, over three tenths of seconds faster than Heikki Kovalainen's best from yesterday, put the German driver over a second in front of the closest of his rivals.

Schumacher and teammate Luca Badoer completed Ferrari's preparations for France, the German carrying out tyre testing for the Magny-Cours race while the Italian did aero work.

Badoer, who forced the session to be stopped once when he spun off track, finished as fourth quickest, over two seconds off Schumacher's pace.

Jacques Villeneuve and Robert Kubica had another promising day for BMW after posting the second and third quickest times respectively. The Canadian, who today tested the F1.06 fitted with the bizarre-looking vertical wings, was the busiest man with 97 laps covered.

Both BMW drivers caused a red flag each during the session, Villeneuve stopping on track at around 11am and Kubica just 20 minutes later.

The Toyota team completed their preparations for the French Grand Prix, again with Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli in charge of testing duties.

Both men focused on tyre selection for Magny-Cours, and both caused a red flag each, Schumacher stopping with an engine problem around noon and Trulli later with a similar issue.

Christian Klien and Mark Webber were the only men in action for their respective teams, the Red Bull driver outpacing the Williams pilot.

Webber, working on tyre testing and aero work, stopped the session twice during the day, the first time when he spun off the track and the second when he stopped on the main straight with a mechanical problem.

Today's times:

Pos  Driver        Team                   Time      Laps
 1.  M.Schumacher  Ferrari           (B)  1:16.626   93
 2.  Villeneuve    BMW-Sauber        (M)  1:17.714   97
 3.  Kubica        BMW-Sauber        (M)  1:18.194   45
 4.  Badoer        Ferrari           (B)  1:18.985   59
 5.  R.Schumacher  Toyota            (B)  1:18.921   86
 6.  Trulli        Toyota            (B)  1:19.246   88
 7.  Klien         Red Bull-Ferrari  (M)  1:19.701   44
 8.  Webber        Williams-Cosworth (B)  1:19.792   43

All Timing Unofficial