Davidson shocks with fastest time on Jerez day 3

[davewilson]

Anthony Davidson raised a few eyebrows as he topped the timesheets on the third day of testing at Jerez in Spain.

The 27-year-old British driver, who will race for the tail-end team this year after switching over from his role as a test driver with Honda, lapped the venue in 1:19.628 – faster than world champions Renault, who were also out in force.

Davidson, who focused on testing electrical systems, completed a mammoth 145 laps at the wheel of Super Aguri's interim car.

Renault's Giancarlo Fisichella was second, 0.138 seconds behind, but suffered a mechanical failure and caused one of two red flags when he parked his brands new R27 on the circuit.

There were two further session stoppages, the first when Fisichella's Finnish team-mate Heikki Kovalainen – who was slowest of the four cars present – parked with smoke bellowing from his car.

The second was when Williams' Nico Rosberg stopped his car with a far less-obvious problem.

The Stig