Gary Paffett put McLaren at the top of the time sheets on the second day of Formula 1's young driver test at Jerez. The DTM racer completed 80 laps of the circuit and set a best time of 1:18.718 – the fastest lap of the test so far – shortly after 1 p.m.
Light rain during the middle of the afternoon left the track greasy, with lap times dropping off by around six seconds. Track conditions did improve during the final hour, though, during which time Nico Hulkenberg (Williams) leaped up to second in the order with a time 0.466sec slower than Paffett, who is due to share driving duties with Oliver Turvey on Thursday.
Red Bull driver Daniel Ricciardo continued to impress with the fastest time of the morning and the third quickest of the day, as the Australian ran a shorter program than on Tuesday. At Force India, America's J.R. Hildebrand took over from Paul di Resta in the afternoon, winding up eighth overall with a lap of 1:20.517 – just over a second slower than the more F1-experienced di Resta, who was fourth-quickest overall with his morning best lap of 1:19.411.
Former Formula BMW Americas champion Esteban Gutierrez was next up for Sauber, the Mexican taking over from America's Alexander Rossi. He wound up four places ahead of his former Formula 3 Euro Series teammate Jules Bianchi, who again drove for Ferrari and focused on long runs.
Mike Conway and Marcus Ericsson again split the driving duties for Brawn, and were split by only 0.218sec by the end of the day in sixth and seventh.
Renault ran Chinese driver Ho-Pin Tung during the morning and Brazilian Lucas di Grassi during the afternoon. GP2 race-winner di Grassi was the quicker by 0.694sec.
There was only one stoppage all day, caused when Mirko Bortolotti's Toro Rosso stopped out on the track after half an hour, after he accidentally pushed a button that prevented his gearbox from functioning. The car then spent a long time in the pits during the late morning owing to an unrelated technical problem.