On his team's final day of testing at Paul Ricard, Jacques Villeneuve gave BMW a major confidence boost by posting the fastest time of the day.

After two days on the tight twisty 2D SC Short track, today, the seven teams were using the longer 1E SC Short configuration.

Both Jacques, who was there for his second consecutive day, and Robert Kubica, who was back after Nick Heidfeld finished his two day stint on Wednesday, worked on aero and tyres in preparation for the Canadian Grand Prix.

Having finished third quickest on Wednesday, just 0.200s off Fernando Alonso's benchmark, Villeneuve's pace will be give BMW a boost in confidence ahead of next weekend's Monaco Grand Prix.

Having set the pace on Tuesday and Wednesday, today, Renault could only manage second (Kovalainen) and fifth fastest (Alonso).

The French team concluded its three-day programme with Alonso concentrating on set up changes before moving on to tyre development in order to evaluate tyres for the Canadian Grand Prix. The Spaniard completed his programme this morning with 126 laps covered and then left the track as the team wanted to preserve him for Monaco. He is also committed to the Renault F1 Roadshow which will take place in Seville this weekend.

Kovalainen ran all day and remained focused on tyre testing as it was the main objective of the Paul Ricard test.

"We only had one day of testing on the Montreal configuration but the results are good and we recorded useful data to continue working on the preparation of the Canadian GP," said Christian Silk. "Once again, we can be pleased with the excellent reliability of our engine on this track which is really demanding."

At McLaren, Pedro de la Rosa and Gary Paffett took over driving duties from Kimi Raikkonen and Juan Pablo Montoya.

The Spaniard was third fastest on the timesheets with a time of 1:25.834. He completed a total of 120 laps as he focussed on tyre selection for Canada.

Today Gary Paffett's first experience of testing in the MP4-21 as previously he has been concentrating on tyre testing in the iMP4-20. The Englishman completed over 516km with his quickest time being the eighth fastest overall.

Pedro and Gary will continue their work tomorrow.

Red Bull concluded its test here, with David Coulthard and Robert Doornbos. The Scot finished sixth quickest, and the Dutch driver ninth.

Today was hectic as we packed in Canadian tyre choice work, car set-up and development work," said chief test engineer, Ian Morgan. "Over the three days, we learnt quite a bit about the car which will serve us well over the next couple of races, however, problems with engines and some development parts on the gearbox meant we did not complete as many laps as we would have liked."

Ricardo Zonta and Olivier Panis were on duty for Toyota, taking over from Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli, as the Japanese team continues its work with the revised TF106B.

Neel Jani was the third Toro Rosso driver in as many days. The Swiss driver working, like many of his rivals, working on Canada tyre choice.

"The same chassis and engine was used for all three days and it was good to get so much distance under our belt," said Chief Engineer, Laurent Mekies. "It was encouraging that, after a couple of reliability problems in Spain, the car ran trouble-free here in what was virtually a two race distance simulation."

It was a bad day for Ferrari, with Felipe Massa's engine blowing after just three laps. With the Italian outfit fearing that rain would disrrupt the session, the team packed up early, with the Brazilian heading off to Fiorano, where he will take over from Michael Schumacher tomorrow.

Consequently, only Toyota and McLaren will run here tomorrow (Friday), the final day of testing.