Valencia 3: Pizzonia's record

The Brazilian, who is tipped to land the role of second test driver with the team, smashed Montoya's time from yesterday by 0.193s, lowering the record time to 1m09.123s. Pizzonia set his time in the FW25, although he also drove Williams' 2004 machine after Ralf Schumacher returned home to Austria early with abdominal pain.

"It's not bad," Pizzonia told autosport.com regarding his stunning lap. "Now we have a problem because we have to make the new car faster than the old one! It was a shame that I couldn't do more laps in the new car, but I had a differential problem."

Fellow Williams tester Gene set the third quickest time in the FW26, but wasn't surprised by the pace of the old machine. "We've seen how competitive the FW25 is, but it was a very good car by the end of last year," he explained. "Naturally, it was fast, but we'd like the FW26 to be faster."

Michael Schumacher split the Williams duo with the second fastest time, having spent the day tyre testing in the F2003-GA. "I think if you do as much testing as we have done here and in the past week you're bound to find something," Schumacher told autosport.com. "Indeed we did find something very useful, but it will still be a very close competition."

When asked exactly what he'd found Schumacher said: "Naturally, I did lots of tyre testing so I found some good tyres."

Schumacher is due to shakedown the F2004 at Fiorano tomorrow, but denied that it was a waste of effort to continue running the old machine. "If you had conceptual differences between the two cars it could cause a problem," he said. "But our new car is quite close to the old car, so what works on that old should still work on the new. Obviously, we'll have to find out with the new car whether it works or not."

Giancarlo Fisichella was fourth quickest for Sauber ahead of Jenson Button, who concentrated on tyre testing in the hybrid BAR. Although he completed 92 laps, his running was disrupted by another Honda engine failure.

"We had a good two days of testing, although we could have done more laps," said Button. "We almost finished the programme we were running. I can't wait to drive the new car next week."

Christian Klien concentrated on basic set-up work in the Jaguar R5 while Toyota ace Cristiano da Matta worked on a tyre and aerodynamic programme in the TF104. Anthony Davidson ran a tyre programme for BAR, while Zsolt Baumgartner completed 103 laps for Minardi.

Antonio Pizzonia Williams-BMW M 1m09.123s 60
Michael Schumacher Ferrari B 1m09.407s 93
Marc Gene Williams-BMW M 1m10.440s 89*
Giancarlo Fisichella Sauber-Petronas B 1m10.469s 59*
Jenson Button BAR-Honda M 1m10.473s 92
Christian Klien Jaguar M 1m10.897s 101*
Cristiano da Matta Toyota M 1m11.301s 89*
Anthony Davidson BAR-Honda M 1m11.715s 98
Zsolt Baumgartner Minardi-Cosworth B 1m13.317s 103

B = Bridgestone
M = Michelin