Jacques Villeneve picked up right where teammate Felipe Massa left off, leading the way during Formula One testing in Jerez, Spain on Thursday.
Strong winds and rain lashed the circuit for most of the day with drivers managing to put in most of their best times during the final half-hour of the session. Villeneuve posted a top time of 1:22.061 after completing 74 laps, which was almost five seconds slower than Massa's time on Wednesday.
"Today the weather was just like yesterday and the forecast for tomorrow is also not very promising, which makes testing a bit difficult," said Sauber race engineer Giampaolo Dall'Ara. "Jacques mostly used the day to further acclimatize to the car and the team."
"We couldn't get a lot of references concerning aerodynamic and mechanical set-up tests, but we adapted our programme to the conditions and focused on further Michelin tire work. Overall, despite of the bad weather and track conditions we still did quite a lot and the performance was pretty good."
Nick Heidfeld, who wrapped up his two day test session for BMW-Williams, was second quickest, finishing 4-10ths of a second off the pace. He was almost a full second faster than Antonio Pizzonia, his rival for the Williams vacancy.
"I'm really happy with the two days I've had in the car," said Heidfeld. "It's a very nice car to drive, and I was getting more familiar with it lap by lap. I think I would have benefited from some more time, and better weather to get a proper feel of how the car handles in the dry."
"We've made good progress this week in Jerez," said test manager Tim Newton. "Mark, Antonio and Nick all did a good job with the interim cars and, despite some rather inclement weather, all three recorded impressive mileage."
Vittantonio Liuzzi continued his strong showing with the Red Bull Racing team, finishing third fastest followed by teammate Christian Klien with Pizzonia rounding out the top five.
Takuma Sato continued to work behind the wheel of the BAR-Honda concept car, posting the sixth fastest time. Once again, the Brackley-based team had four drivers on track with James Rossiter making his Formula One testing debut on Thursday. He was 16 out of 17 drivers whlie Alan van der Merwe was 10th quickest. Test driver Enrique Bernoldi was the slowest driver on the circuit after crashing in the morning, which limited him to just 14 laps.
Renault and McLaren made their testing appearance at the Spanish circuit with Giancarlo Fisichella finishing seventh quickest followed by Alexander Wurz.
"Although the rain meant we completed a more restricted programme than we would have done on a dry track, it nevertheless provided the opportunity to complete a large amount of useful software development," said Renault's Chief Test Engineer Christian Silk. "Also, Giancarlo had never driven on Michelin wet tires before, so the conditions helped him in another aspect of his acclimatisation to our package."
Toyota had just one driver on the track today as Jarno Trulli was forced to sit out with an eye problem. Ralf Schumacher finished 11th fastest, ahead of the Ferrari duo of Luca Badoer and Marc Gene.
Jordan was represented by one driver on Thursday, Robert Doornbos, who ran 49 laps and finished 15th fastest.
