Barcelona test - day three: 19 February.

BMW WilliamsF1 driver Ralf Schumacher set the pace today [Wednesday], at a very wet Barcelona, the German's best a 1 minute 31.578 seconds.

Indeed conditions were so bad this morning that none of the teams ventured out onto the track. Despite this Ralf notched up 54 laps, while team-mate, Juan Pablo Montoya, completed 53.

JPM was second quickest in the sister FW25, while Jordan's Giancarlo Fisichcella completed the top three. Fisichella, like team-mate Ralph Firman, who was fifth quickest, worked on wet set-ups and practice starts.

Fernando Alonso was fourth, 'the meat in the Jordan Ford sandwich', the Spaniard the only Renault on track, as the team elected not to run Jarno Trulli in the R23 with the latest aerodynamic package, for fear of damaging the car.

Sixth was Mark Webber, the Jaguar driver completed 47 laps and was around two seconds up on his team-mate, Antonio Pizzonia, who was tenth.

Olivier Panis came in seventh, while WilliamsF1 test driver Marc Gene was eighth and B.A.R-Honda's Jenson Button ninth, the Brit again quicker than his team-mate, Jacques Villeneuve, who was the slowest runner overall.

Cristiano da Matta was the only other driver on track, the 2002 CART champion notched up 51 laps in the interim Toyota TF102. He noted: "The weather has been absolutely dreadful all day. Sometimes the track was so wet it was a big deal just to keep on the track..."

Testing continues tomorrow [Thursday].

Leading times (19 February) - Barcelona:

1. Ralf Schumacher Williams-BMW# 1m 31.578s 54 laps M
2. Juan Pablo Montoya Williams-BMW# 1m 31.950s 53 laps M
3. Giancarlo Fisichella Jordan-Ford# 1m 32.488s 27 laps B
4. Fernando Alonso Renault# 1m 32.685s 25 laps M
5. Ralph Firman Jordan-Ford# 1m 32.719s 51 laps B
6. Mark Webber Jaguar-Cosworth# 1m 33.055s 47 laps M
7. Olivier Panis Toyota# 1min 34.003secs 38 laps M
8. Marc Gene Williams-BMW 1m 34.201s 33 laps M
9. Jenson Button B.A.R-Honda# 1m 34.981s 31 laps B
10. Antonio Pizzonia Jaguar-Cosworth# 1m 35.027s 46 laps
11. Cristiano da Matta Toyota 1m 38.801s 51 laps M
12. Jacques Villeneuve B.A.R-Honda# 1m 39.961s 25 laps B

B - denotes Bridgestone tyres.
M - denotes Michelin tyres.
# - denotes 2003 car.

Track / weather conditions: Heavy cloud and rain throughout the session.