Pedro de la Rosa topped the timesheets on the final day at Monza, though, like Thursday, the morning session was affected by the weather.

The rain was falling heavily when the session got underway at 9.00 but only a couple of brave souls ventured out. Throughout the morning drivers would go out to 'test the waters [literally] as conditions remained difficult.

Conditions gradually improved, meanwhile the teams opted to take a shortened lunch-break at noon, giving them from 13.00 to get down to serious work. By 13.30 conditions were almost perfect, finally the real work, the serious lappery, got underway.

de la Rosa and the McLaren team finalised their tyre evaluation with Bridgestone prior to next week's Grand Prix. The Woking team carried out significant aerodynamic testing, brake selection, set-up and mechanical work, on both general development programmes and specific to the Italian track.

By the end of the day, the Spaniard had completed 55 laps on his way to posting a best time of 1:23.285, the second best time of the week.

As an appetiser for next week, Felipe Massa was just four-thousandths of a second slower than the McLaren driver as he continued working on finding the best set-up for next week.

Third quickest, and looking very aggressive, particularly through the first chicane, was Robert Kubica in the BMW.

The Pole continued his work from Thursday, concentrating on further improving the mechanical set-up of the car, as well as fine-tuning the electronic systems. He also made a tyre comparison, doing a number of long-runs.

Nico Rosberg gave his team a boost ahead of next week's race by posting the fourth best time of the day. That said, an engine failure at the very end of the session will give the Grove outfit, and its Japanese partner, cause for concern. The team was also confused by a tyre pressure problem. The German completed 94 laps, posting a best time 0.677s off de la Rosa's time.

Like many drivers, it was a case of an installation lap for Ralf Schumacher and then no meaningful testing until after the rescheduled lunch break. The temperatures increased and the sun came out for the afternoon session and the German was finally able to concentrate on some largely mechanical set-up work ahead of next race.

"It was a little bit frustrating today as once again we lost the morning to rain," said the German. "The track surface was 'green' once again and we lost a bit more time in the afternoon when the car stopped due to a small technical issue.

"I was concentrating on mechanical aspects of the set-up but at the end of the day I still felt that we had work to do," he admitted. "It was also difficult to make meaningful comparisons at the end of the session when Rosberg lost an engine and oil went down at Turn 1."

"The test got off to a good start and we ran the first two days virtually without interruption and made strong progress with Jarno," said Gerd Pfeiffer. "He had solid confidence in the car when he left on Wednesday night and was looking forward to his home Grand Prix.

"Ralf, meanwhile, has been more unfortunate, with the weather wiping out both Thursday and Friday mornings. It has been a long test and the team has worked well, but Ralf feels that there is still progress to be made and we will carefully analyse the data before next Friday's first practice day."