By Karl King
April 8 2006

The Paul Ricard timesheets were topped by Toyota tester Ricardo Zonta as the week's testing came to a close on Friday. The Brazilian beat Renault driver Giancarlo Fisichella to the top spot by just 0.1s.

Behind these two were the McLaren duo, lead by Pedro de la Rosa. Whilst bumping his total mileage for the week up to approximately 1,416km in the MP4-21, Pedro continued his work on front suspension, dampers and general set up, alongside Michelin tyre testing.

Completing 120 rounds of the circuit, Pedro commented,"This has been an intensive and productive three days of testing at Paul Ricard. I have been working with the test team on a range of development programmes with MP4-21, including damper work for San Marino, front suspension and some more general set-up work. We are continuing to make positive progress, which we will carry over to next week when Kimi and Juan Pablo will be testing at Barcelona before the return to racing at Imola."

Briton Gary Paffett, also in action for the team in the orange V10 MP4-20 continued his Michelin tyre selection and development programme. Gary was the busiest man of the day, covering 163 laps, his efforts putting him above the BMW pair of Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld. Gary said "My week has again been fully focused on Michelin development work. With the mileage we have covered, we have been able to complete a number of activities within the programme, including the final stages of Imola selection. We used one engine since I started the test and we did quite a few more miles than you usually do over the course of two race weekends."

Again at the bottom of the timesheets was Olivier Panis, his best lap almost three seconds off of his team mate's pace, whilst Kovalainen did not complete any running due to a damaged chassis.

Testing will continue in Barcelona on the 12th-14th April, where Juan Pablo and Kimi will join in the fun.

1. ZONTA         Toyota      1m04.157s
2. FISICHELLA    Renault     1m04.258s
3. DE LA ROSA    McLaren     1m04.591s
4. PAFFETT       McLaren     1m04.899s
5. KUBICA        BMW Sauber  1m04.944s
6. HEIDFELD      BMW Sauber  1m05.673s
7. PANIS         Toyota      1m06.741s