In a last minute banzai effort, Honda's Jenson Button stole Renault's thunder, taking fastest time of the day, indeed the year, at Barcelona.

Weather conditions were cold and sunny today for the third day of testing at the Spanish track

Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello were on duty for Honda, the Englishman ran through a tyre programme alongside an aero evaluation in the morning, while the Brazilian continued to work on chassis set-up, followed by an aero programme.

Button spent the afternoon completing a tyre evaluation, alongside a brake evaluation, while Barrichello also ran through a tyre evaluation programme.

With minutes of the session remaining, it looked as though the Renaults would take the honours, however a final burst saw Button post an amazing 1:13.935.

Anthony Davidson will take over from Button tomorrow with Rubens continuing in the other car.

Alonso and Fisichella completed their tests without any major problems and were highly competitive all day long.

The Spaniard covered a race distance in the morning and showed very good levels of performance and consistency during his runs. Then he continued his programme, focusing on set up changes, especially regarding aerodynamics.

The Italian completed a major set up programme today. He performed very well and ultimately took the second fastest lap time of the day: 1:13.971.

"We made some good improvements for the first races," said Alonso. "The car is good, well balanced and I think we identified some interesting directions with Michelin for the beginning of the season. I am confident and I am now impatient to compare our performances with the other teams in race conditions".

"I think I completed today an important part of my testing program and I am really happy with our results," added Fisichella. "My performances were good and the directions we are taking regarding the car development especially seem to be very satisfying. It was a very good day of testing".

"We had a very satisfying day today," said Christian Silk, "as we completed our programme on both cars without any major problem. We especially worked on the preparation of the first races because the start of the season is now very close. The lap times and the results of the tests we did today are good and the drivers were both very happy with the balance of the car. We are very pleased, and our results give the team even more motivation to continue pushing hard."

McLaren's Barcelona test ended today with Raikkonen and Juan Pablo Montoya completing just under 1000km.

Both drivers were continuing the programme for the week, which had seen the team focus on set-up work alongside putting significant mileage onto the two MP4-21s that were in Spain.

Juan Pablo set a fastest time of 1m14.588 over the course of 131 laps, which was the largest total for the day of all 14 drivers on track. Kimi put in a 1m15.475, though he looked certain to beat this until a red flag - following Ralf Schumacher's engine failure - caused him to abort his final run.