Villeneuve leads the way at Jerez

The BMW driver's best time of 1:18.752, set on his final lap of the day, put him nearly a second ahead of his closest rival.

Villeneuve had a productive day as the team continued making progress with their new P86 engine, the former World Champion completing 101 laps.

McLaren's Pedro de la Rosa, quickest yesterday, was second fastest today. De la Rosa was carrying out tyre testing for Michelin in a V10-engined car, but which simulated a V8 engine as two cylinders were not working.

Teammate Alexander Wurz was again at the wheel of the car fitted with the V8 unit, the Austrian finishing in fifth.

Toyota completed their last day of this week's test programme, with both Jarno Trulli and Ricardo Zonta at the wheel for work on set-up and on the team's new Bridgestone tyres.

"This has been an interesting week of putting mileage on the new TF106," said Trulli. "The V8 engine has been running well with good power and good torque, and the car as a whole has been reliable. We've done a lot of work on the tyres and we have learned a lot.

"At this early stage it has just been a matter of getting used to how the new rubber works. We still have to find the window where we can get the maximum out of the tyres, but we are working hard to collect data to understand how to approach our programme in January and February."

Ferrari's test driver Marc Gene continued working on an engine reliability programme at the wheel of the hybrid F2004 with the V8 unit. The Spaniard had a busy day, covering a total of 111 laps on his way to the sixth quickest time of the day.

Markus Winkelhock, son of the late Formula One racer Manfred, made his Formula One debut with the MF1 Racing team, driving the V10-engined car, sharing the car with Italian Fabrizio del Monte and Russian Roman Rusinov, who was also driving a Formula One car for the first time.

Winkelhock enjoyed a positive session despite his lack of experience with Grand Prix cars, finishing as the quickest of the four drivers the MF1 Racing team worked with today.

Dutchman Christijan Albers drove the V8-powered car, but his mileage was limited after suffering a fuel injection problem first and then an electronic problem in the afternoon.

He managed just 25 laps during the day to finish as ninth quickest, only ahead of del Monte.

Today's times:

Pos  Driver        Team                Tyres  Time     Laps
 1.  Villeneuve    BMW-Sauber           (M)  1:18.752  101
 2.  de la Rosa    McLaren-Mercedes     (M)  1:19.533   94  *
 3.  Zonta         Toyota               (B)  1:19.805   60
 4.  Trulli        Toyota               (B)  1:19.870   77
 5.  Wurz          McLaren-Mercedes     (M)  1:20.219  111
 6.  Gene          Ferrari              (B)  1:20.246  111
 7.  Winkelhock    MF1-Toyota           (B)  1:20.856   52  *
 8.  Rusinov       MF1-Toyota           (B)  1:21.990   29  *
 9.  Albers        MF1-Toyota           (B)  1:22.683   25  
10.  del Monte     MF1-Toyota           (B)  1:24.350   27  *

(*) V10 engine

All Timing Unofficial