Four teams, featuring six drivers, continued their 2006 test programmes at Paul Ricard today, the third day of testing at the French facility.

After a productive opening day on Wednesday, Renault continued its development programme, with today's running built on yesterday's successful start, with Heikki Kovalainen completing a mammoth 213 laps as he worked on tyre evaluation with Michelin.

The season may have started two weeks ago, but the French outfit is clearly fully aware of the strategic importance of the early European races and is therefore working flat out to maintain its advantage.

On his way to posting the fastest time of the day, Kovalainen completed medium distance runs at the wheel of chassis R26-04.

"We had a very productive day once again, without any problems at all," said Christian Silk. "Heikki ran a lot of laps, and looked quick. Our work centred around developing yesterday's tyre programme, and we made more good progress. Heikki was very pleased with the car, and the entire team worked very hard to make sure we got the most out of every run. We know these are crucial test session, with respect to the coming races."

Nick Heidfeld, taking over from Robert Kubica, was second quickest, as BMW continues to improve. In the morning, the German worked on the set-up of the car and the fine tuning of the electronic systems. However, the programme was interrupted by a mechanical problem.

In the afternoon, he continued the tyre test programme and worked on the tyre evaluation for the San Marino Grand Prix.

Pedro de la Rosa continued the MP4-21 development programme, while Gary Paffett, who was once again driving the V10 powered MP4-20, focussed on concluding tyre selection for Imola with Michelin.

This programme saw both drivers complete series of short and long runs to evaluate the different compounds. Pedro's morning session ended with six one-lappers as the Spaniard simulated qualifying on the different Michelins as part of the programme.

Toyota continued its testing programme, and despite the strong breeze blowing all day, the sun was shining and temperatures were moderate enough for both Jarno Trulli and Ricardo Zonta to put in some good running.

In the morning both drivers continued testing different set-ups, while the afternoon was spent trying a new softer Bridgestone tyre compound.

"We worked on more tyre and set-up testing to evaluate tyres for Australia because so far we have just found out that we have to go softer on our car in order to make the car work," admitted Jarno Trulli. "At any rate we are looking at many options to understand how the car is behaving. One step is to work with a softer compound, which we were using this afternoon. Overall, we are mainly pushing hard this week to be competitive at the next races and I am sure we will have some interesting data to take with us to Australia."

Even on his 30th birthday, Ricardo Zonta found time to complete 121 laps. Once the session was completed, he celebrated with the team, having dinner and blowing out candles on his birthday cake.

"Today was quite good, and everything worked well," said the Brazilian. "The wind in the morning was upsetting the car in the fast corners but the track was cleaner and hotter than yesterday, so this was better for us. We found some positive results with the warming up and consistency of the tyres on my car and this is definitely good for the future. In addition, everything was reliable on the car. We did 121 laps without any problems and this was also an encouraging factor."