F1 young driver test: Jules Bianchi quickest again with Force India

The Frenchman had tested for Ferrari on the opening day, but switched to Force India as the team evaluates his potential for a race seat in 2013.

He worked his way down to a 1m16.467s, more than 1.5 seconds faster than his benchmark on the opening day.

Bianchi's time was also less than two hundredths shy of Kimi Raikkonen's pole time set when F1 last raced at the French track in 2008.

In his second day at the wheel of the Mercedes W03, which ran with a new Coanda-effect exhaust layout, Sam Bird finished just over one second down the road.

Bird also had the opportunity to talk seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher through Mercedes' upgrades, with the German an interested observer during the morning running.

"We've had a second very positive day at the test and successfully completed our planned schedule, including the evaluation of the performance items that we wanted to achieve," said Bird. "We're happy with the results that we've seen so far and there is a lot of information to go through to hopefully help improve the car.

"It was a great experience to be back behind the wheel of a Formula One car this week, and to help with the development programme, and I would like to thank the team for giving me this opportunity."

With Bianchi switching to Force India, Ferrari gave Davide Rigon a run-out on the second day.

The Italian was tasked with aerodynamic work and ran with several different iterations of front wings, but worked his way down to a 1m17.925s.

The young driver test concludes tomorrow.

Pos  Driver               Team                   Time               Laps
 1.  Jules Bianchi        Force India-Mercedes   1m16.467s           117
 2.  Sam Bird             Mercedes               1m17.482s  + 1.015  125 
 3.  Davide Rigon         Ferrari                1m17.925s  + 1.458  163 

All Timing Unofficial

Sabrina Beaudoin is a French motorsport journalist who covers Formula 1 online. You can follow her on Twitter at @Sabriiico