Hulkenberg sets pace on day two of second test

© Force India

Nico Hulkenberg clocked the quickest time on the second day of the Barcelona test in the Force India on Wednesday well ahead of front-running teams.

The German's quickest time was 1 minute 22.608 seconds in the 112 laps he completed "faultlessly" around the Catalunya circuit.

"Once again the car has been very drivable all day and our baseline set-up has proved to be a good starting point for running all the different compounds," Hulkenberg reported.

Sergio Perez, who overcame an exhaust problem in the late afternoon, was second in his Sauber ticking off "quite a few high priority points" on the job list.

Sebastian Vettel then followed completing just over 100 laps in his Red Bull although the team encountered a minor problem. The world champion however believed that the team is "on the right road with the car".

The top two drivers set their quickest times on the supersoft tyres, effectively placing the defending champion’s time the quickest among the 2012 favorites .

Temperatures at the Spanish track were very cold early in the day posing difficulties to the teams as they struggled to collect decent information.

“It was again so cold this morning that we had problems with pit stop practice, simply because the equipment was freezing up as we tried to use it," said Red Bull's head of race engineering Ian Morgan.

Fernando Alonso was next in his Ferrari followed by the Toro Rosso of Daniel Ricciardo, who had covered the least amount of mileage due to a couple of stoppages.

Lewis Hamilton was sixth with the McLaren racking up the highest number of laps in the day in a session he described as "encouraging".

"The car behaves really well in the high-speed corners – I think the baseline of our car is higher than it was last year – and it’s better overall at high-speed," Hamilton said.

"We don’t know the fuel-loads of the other cars, so it’s still hard to determine the pecking order," the Briton said adding that the team didn't bring any upgrades at Barcelona.

Nico Rosberg managed to set the seventh fastest time in his Mercedes and was ahead of the Williams of Valtteri Bottas, with the test and reserve driver driving for the British team for the first time this year.

"It was great to get back in the car as I have been waiting for this day since I took part in the young driver test in Abu Dhabi last year," said the Finn who pointed out that the FW34 ran reliably.

Bottas worked on general car set-up with a run plan tailored around familiarising him with a typical Friday practice session, in which he is scheduled to make 15 appearances this year.

"I’m looking forward to assisting the team at race weekends this season and can’t wait to drive the car again," Bottas said.

Vitaly Petrov too got his first run in an F1 car this year setting the ninth fastest time in the Caterham.

"One thing I have noticed is that this car behaves a little differently from my previous experience and I think I may have to adjust my driving style to get the best out of it – I’ve been quite aggressive before, but I think this car responds better to smoother inputs, so that’s something I can work on," the Russian observed.

Charles Pic was tenth in the Marussia.

Lotus is not testing due to a chassis problem it hopes to resolve by next week's session.