Final day of testing at Silversone for WilliamsF1

The final day of testing at Silverstone would see a change of drivers for the BMW WilliamsF1 team with test driver Marc Gene taking over from Ralf Schumacher. Juan Pablo Montoya was still present. At the close of testing Gene and Juan Pablo would be thirteenth and fourteenth respectively.

After two difficult days in regard to the weather the third was no different as rain continued to soak the track occasionally in the morning but despite this a reasonable amount of dry running was achieved in the afternoon. For both Gene and Montoya the focus was on setup work for the Canadian Grand Prix, as well as tyre testing for Michelin.

Sam Michael, WilliamsF1 Chief Operations Engineer , said of the test: "Quite a difficult test because of the intermittent nature of the weather, but we still managed to progress a lot of work for Michelin, especially with regard to compound selections for Canada, together with associated set-up work for the forthcoming race. We also made good headway with engine development work, so in spite of the conditions, it has been a productive test."

Ferrari's Rubens Barrichello would again be fastest on this third day. Rubens set the pace by far more than a second. The Ferrari team tried various set-ups for the British Grand Prix in early July.

Allan McNish came in second and was reasonably happy: "We continued to try and get our tyre test done and in the end we did a limited programme. However things are shaping up well and the car was feeling good today."

Mika Salo was also present for Toyota, but he had a troubled session, which didn't prevent him from being optimistic: "We collected all the necessary data and the new front and rear wing assemblies are looking good." Mika would finish the day in fifteenth. McLaren driver Raikkonen and Coulthard were both present  with Raikkonen seventh and Coulthard eleventh.

In third was Renault test driver Fernando Alonso. But this time he would be seen in a Jaguar rather than his normal Renault. The engineers focused their efforts on driver evaluation as there are no technical modifications to the package until the British Grand Prix later on.

At Sauber, Nick Heidfeld took over from Massa. He wasn't competitive enough and had a scary moment when he hit a bird at Bridge corner: "It just flew straight into my helmet." Nick added: 'You'd make a change to the car and then as soon as you went out to try it it would start to rain again.'

The Renault drivers finished in ninth and tenth respectively. "Although the weather has meant we haven’t done as much running as we would have liked this week, we are nevertheless pleased with what we have achieved," said Technical Director Mike Gascoyne.