Today was the third and final day of testing at the Monza circuit where Ferrari driver Felipe Massa topped the timesheets for the second time, almost eight tenths of a second ahead of Renault champion Fernando Alonso. Along with teammate Michael Schumacher, who finished fourth overall behind the Red Bull of Christian Klien, Felipe continued with the programme that was initiated on Tuesday, which centred mainly on development of Bridgestone tyres and preparation for the Italian Grand Prix.

Nico Rosberg was fifth for his Cosworth powered Williams team, the German rookie completing 73 laps to finish a fraction of a second behind Schumacher and just ahead of his seventh placed teammate, Alex Wurz.

“Alex and Nico were on duty for our final day of testing at Monza. Alex concentrated on comprehensive tyre tests, which took up the bulk of today's running, although there were some new mechanical parts being tested for reliability at the same time. Nico completed work on the specific aero package we will run next week as well as some smaller aero parts before finishing the remainder of our tyre tests ahead of the race,” said Mike Condliffe.

Sandwiched between the two FW28’s was McLaren’s Pedro de la Rosa, who completed a total of 92 laps, while test driver Gary7 Paffett, who stood in for Kimi Raikkonen due to the fact hat the Finn is still sore from his accident in Sunday’s Turkish Grand Prix, finished ninth.

“Monza is the only circuit that we test on so close to the actual race and as a result the programme this week has been very much focused on the Italian Grand Prix. The track has been resurfaced since we were last here so we have been concentrating particularly on tyre evaluation with our Partner Michelin,” said Martin Whitmarsh. “Alongside this we have been working on the race set-up of both cars with Pedro and Gary, who have both been working on the aerodynamic package for this race. Gary's engine was at the end of its lifecycle and as a result failed this afternoon. However the mechanics did a fantastic job of changing it in a very short period of time, so that he could go back out towards the end of the session. We have achieved some positive results with both Gary and Pedro, and we go into the race next weekend with a greater understanding of what to expect from the circuit."

Ricardo Zonta was eighth for Toyota, the Brazilian continued on testing different set-ups on both cars in the afternoon and collected the final data the team needed to make the final tyre choice. The team will now head back to the headquarters in Cologne to analyse all the data and prepare for next weekend.

"Yesterday the going was slow due to the red lights but today went well. I was able to do some long runs to evaluate the tyre choice alternatives for the coming race. We also did some final fine-tuning with the aero package and practiced some launches,” he said. “It is unfortunate that we could not run both cars at the same time in the afternoon, but I think we the team did a good job preparing the cars so I could drive both and collect the data we needed. Like always, it's hard to say how we will do next weekend, but I think we have a competitive package and we will just have to wait and see."

Meanwhile, teammate Ralf Schumacher was forced to leave the season due to the fact that he wasn’t feeling well.

BMW’s Robert Kubica suffered a crash in the morning session, the young Pole forced to sit on the sidelines until two o’clock when his car was repaired. He did several race preparations and completed a huge tyre testing programme in the afternoon’s perfect weather conditions, when he was evaluating different compounds for Monza during six long runs, finishing eleventh overall. Meanwhile, Sebastian Vettel carried out aero and set-up work for the Monza race, as well as some systems work with special emphasis on shifting, finishing sixteenth overall.

Unofficial times*:

Pos	Driver	Constructor	Time	Laps
1	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1m21.098	92
2	Fernando Alonso	Renault	1m21.895	129
3	Christian Klien	Red Bull Racing	1m21.994	83
4	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari	1m22.013	96
5	Nico Rosberg	Williams F1	1m22.082	73
6	Pedro de la Rosa	Team McLaren Mercedes	1m22.172	92
7	Alex Wurz	Williams F1	1m22.175	91
8	Ricardo Zonta	Toyota	1m22.364	109
9	Gary Paffett	Team McLaren Mercedes	1m22.439	59
10	Jenson Button	Honda Racing	1m22.538	53
11	Heikki Kovalainen	Renault	1m22.572	103
12	Robert Kubica	BMW Sauber	1m22.932	106
13	David Coulthard	Red Bull Racing	1m22.939	75
14	Rubens Barrichello	Honda Racing	1m23.089	36
15	Tonio Liuzzi	Toro Rosso	1m23.116	87
16	Sebastian Vettel	BMW Sauber	1m23.198	124
17	Scott Speed	Toro Rosso	1m23.731	90
18	Tiago Monterio	MF1 Racing	1m23.853	102
19	Takuma Sato	Super Aguri	1m24.538	62
20	Ralf Schumacher	Toyota	No time	15