Paul Ricard Day Three
Renault test driver Heikki Kovalainen stayed firmly at the top of the timing sheets on Thursday at Paul Ricard. The Finn covered a massive 213 laps of the 3.8km 3ESC configuration of the French circuit.
It was a warm and sunny day at the circuit with air temperature reching 15 degrees Centigrade. Kovalainen finished half a second up on BMW's Nick Heidfeld who completed just 96 laps by comparison.
McLaren testing duo - Pedro de la Rosa and Gary Paffett worked on tyre testing - Paffett doing some longer runs while de la Rosa simulated some qualifying-type runs. They finished third and fourth fastest covering almost 300 laps between them.
Toyota was also in action with Jarno Trulli taking over from Ralf Schumacher and Ricardo Zonta driving the other car. The team had a better day completing almost 200 laps between both drivers and finishing 1.3s off Kovalainen's pace.
1.Heikki Kovalainen Renault 1m04.400 213
2.Nick Heidfeld BMW Sauber 1m04.903 96
3.Pedro de la Rosa Team McLaren Mercedes 1m05.094 145
4.Gary Paffett Team McLaren Mercedes 1m05.518 153
5.Jarno Trulli Toyota 1m05.702 72
6.Ricardo Zonta Toyota 1m05.738 121
Testing at Paul Ricard concludes tomorrow.
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