Pic tops WSR testing at Valencia

The Renault Driver Development Programme-supported Frenchman's effort of 1m22.712s displaced James Walker's fastest time from the morning by a tenth of a second.

Even so, Pic's Tech 1 Racing team boss Simon Abadie was not entirely satisfied with the day's work.

"Honestly, I was expecting a 1m22.4s to be a good time, so we still have some more work to do for tomorrow," said Abadie.

"I wasn't able to put together all of my best sectors in a single lap," Pic explained, "so I think that's why Simon said that. Also, it is quite hard when you spend so much time running on old tyres, as we have no choice but to do, to suddenly switch to a new set and make a perfect lap."

The Carlin Motorsport duo of Oliver Turvey and Jamie Alguersuari ended the afternoon in second and fourth positions, split by the Draco machine of Spaniard Marco Barba.

Greg Mansell put in a strong performance for USR in sixth. The Formula Renault 3.5 rookie was just 0.003 seconds away from the best time of his race winning team-mate, Miguel Molina.

Morning pace-setter Walker completed limited running on used tyres in the afternoon, and consequently dropped to 13th in the session, although he was third in the combined timesheets.

Walker was one of a number of drivers who intend to save a set of tyres for use in the final pre-season collective test at Barcelona, as the track will play host to the opening round of the season.

"I am happy that we set our lap time when the track was at its warmest," said Walker's P1 Motorsport team boss Roly Vincini.

"We were trying to replicate qualifying conditions. We are not part of the qualifying club out there, I am sure James could find another half a second if we wanted to go for a lap time."

Saturday's combined testing times:

Pos  Driver               Team             Time      Laps
 1.  Charles Pic          Tech1            1:22.712  61
 2.  Oliver Turvey        Carlin           1:22.859  72
 3.  James Waker          P1               1:22.862  65
 4.  Marco Barba          Draco            1:22.862  43
 5.  Jaime Alguersauri    Carlin           1:22.968  81
 6.  Miguel Molina        USR              1:22.975  72
 7.  Greg Mansell         USR              1:22.978  65
 8.  Chris van der Drift  Epsilon Euskadi  1:23.097  67
 9.  Bertrand Baguette    Draco            1:23.284  54
10.  Marcos Martinez      Pons             1:23.324  56
11.  Edoardo Piscopo      Prema Powerteam  1:23.500  67
12.  Sten Pentus          Mofaz Fortec     1:23.549  67
13.  Adrian Valles        Epsilon Euskadi  1:23.750  37
14.  Alex Marsoin         Comtec           1:23.842  57
15.  Tobias Hegewald      Interwetten      1:23.951  66
16.  Julian Leal          Prema Powerteam  1:24.064  91
17.  Fairuz Fauzy         Mofaz Fortec     1:24.145  63
18.  Federico Leo         Pons             1:24.525  74
19.  Anton Nebylitski     Comtec           1:24.682  69
20.  Frankie Provenzano   Tech1            1:24.878  82