The third and penultimate day of testing commenced earlier this morning at Jerez and by sunset, BMW’s Robert Kubica had the fastest lap. Sharing the circuit with both Schumachers, Robert managed 87 laps and his team mate Nick Heidfeld completed the same amount and finished in tenth. Lewis Hamilton followed Kubica closely in second but Ferrari’s Felipe Massa was only 0.002s shy of the McLaren driver. Mark Webber, Timo Glock and Pedro De La Rosa round out the top six.

Michael Schumacher participated in the test today continuing his work on the handling of the car without electronic driver aids. Michael could only set the eighth fastest time and restricted his running to just 67 laps. Honda were again only present with one car, controlled by Rubens Barrichello and ending up just behind former team mate Schumacher Snr in the tables. Super Aguri fielded two cars with Luca Filippi getting the better of full-time driver Takuma Sato. STR pilots Sebastian Vettel and Sebastien Bourdais lapped Jerez at mid-field pace, but did remain ahead of Jarno Trulli’s Toyota, David Coulthard’s Red Bull and Kazuki Nakajima’s Williams.

And finally, Force India once again sent two drivers out in their quest to find a good line up for next season. Today was the chance for third-highest paid driver Ralf Schumacher to show his stuff, and STR refugee Vitantonio Liuzzi drove the second ‘India. Following yesterdays awesome display where fellow ‘India hopeful Fisichella got himself into 9th place, hopes were understandably high for today. However, the cars hogged the bottom row of the tables, Liuzzi managing to get within 0.2s of Sato’s Aguri. Ralf Schumacher didn’t really himself any favours, following Fisichella’s performance yesterday. Schumacher Jr went last, almost 0.7s adrift of Liuzzi. Let’s just say, if I were Vijay Mallya, I know who I’d be hiring.