Schumacher sets new lap record

Michael Schumacher became the fastest man to complete a lap of the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve as he again served notice of his intent ahead of tomorrow’s Canadian Grand Prix.

Fernando Alonso had initially become the first driver to clock a sub-74 second lap of the 4.361km track, only for Schumacher to hook up his Ferrari in the dying moments of the third of four practice sessions.

Alonso had produced a stunning lap of one minute 13.946 seconds and sat at the top of the standings for the majority of the 45-minute run until the six-times world champion shaved just 0.081 of a second off the time with a 1:13.865 lap.

Schumacher’s time was more than 1.5 seconds quicker than the pole of Williams driver Ralf Schumacher last year, and two seconds faster than the race lap record of the German’s team-mate, Juan Pablo Montoya, set two years ago.

The 35-year-old German and Alonso were followed in the standings by a clearly back on-song Jenson Button, who yesterday complained of handling and balance problems with his BAR after the first two hour-long sessions.

But Button’s race engineers seemingly rid the car of its gremlins as the 24-year-old was less than two tenths of a second off the pace, in contrast to team-mate Takuma Sato who propped up the time sheets.

Sato had been second quickest overall yesterday, but the Japanese star did not complete a fully-timed lap as he seemingly suffered problems of his own.

The second Ferrari of Rubens Barrichello was fifth quickest, followed by Jarno Trulli in the other Renault, the McLarens of Kimi Raikkonen and David Coulthard, and then the Williams of Ralf Schumacher and Montoya.

Jordan, meanwhile, have confirmed Giorgio Pantano will not be competing in this race – apparently due to financial problems – and will be replaced by German Timo Glock.

Eddie Jordan stated: “For the last couple of days we’ve been pushing for Giorgio and were hoping it [his situation] would be resolved. It’s a sad situation for him, but Timo is now our driver.”