Webber leads in the wet

Pedro de la Rosa all-but matched the Australian's time for McLaren-Mercedes as most drivers ran 15 different sets of tyres over a series of seven-lap stints.

A skeleton crew of F1 personnel had stayed on after the main test this week for the Michelin wet-track tyre test, attended by five cars. All-bar Webber ran consistently through the day.

Webber set his best time in the morning before stopping after a spin. He did not return to the track until late in the day, and it's not yet clear whether the gearbox problems he has been encountering over the week so far were responsible for the spin, the time out, both or neither.

Renault tester Franck Montagny was the only other driver to go off. The Frenchman spun off mid-afternoon and damaged the car too badly to continue. He was unhurt.

Ironically this was the best day of the week weather-wise at a sunny 23 degrees, but the teams settled in to try new wet and intermediate Michelins in between breaks for the bowsers to soak the track.

Not only were teams trying new tyres, but they were also getting a first feeling for the new-for 2005 reduced downforce levels on a wet surface.

De la Rosa enjoyed himself. "I tried new generation intermediates and the full wets and they've been very interesting," said the Spaniard. "I was pleasantly surprised. I do like this level of downforce. You really have to look after the car and I really like it."

Takuma Sato commented: "We were just gathering data, but after driving such an unstable car on dry-weather tyres yesterday, I was dreading this. It was not as bad as I expected."

Mark Webber (Williams-BMW) M, 1m25.901s
Pedro de la Rosa (McLaren-Mercedes) M, 1m25.950s
Ricardo Zonta (Toyota) M, 1m26.120s
Takuma Sato (BAR-Honda) M, 1m26.703s
Franck Montagny (Renault) M, 1m27.942s