Conditions for the third day of testing at the Circuit de la Comunitat Valencia Ricardo Tormo were horrendous, with rain for much of the day, and temperatures barely creeping above 5 degrees C.

The Ferrari duo of Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello topped the timesheets, the German out-pacing his teammate by almost 2s.

However, a week before the start of the new season, the Italian team had hoped for dry testing, as it prepares for Melbourne. Nonetheless, the conditions allowed the Maranello outfit to carry out vital wet and intermediate tests for Bridgestone, ahead of the launch of the team's 2005 contender on Friday.

McLaren had Pedro de la Rosa and Alexander Wurz on duty. The Woking team spent much of the day in the pits, hoping that conditions would improve. Though there was a slight break in the weather in the afternoon, it wasn't long before the rain resumed. Consequently, the Spaniard completed 19 laps while his Austrian teammate managed just 2 laps of the Spanish track.

WilliamsF1 made good use of the atrocious conditions, testing rain tyres and two different intermediate compounds.

"Unfortunately, Nick's penultimate day of testing before the season starts was too wet to do any constructive testing," admitted Tim Newton, "so we focused on systems checks and familiarisation work with the FW27 in preparation for Melbourne. Hopefully the weather will improve for our final day of track work with Nick tomorrow."

Ralf Schumacher (Toyota) and Jenson Button (BAR) were also present, but neither driver posted a time.

McLaren and Ferrari have given up on Valencia, convinced that conditions won't improve. However, WilliamsF1, BAR and Toyota will stay on for one more day in the hope that they will.

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