Paffett quickest at Barcelona

The Briton, who has been drafted in to help McLaren's testing programme as a reward for capturing the German touring car crown, edged out teammate Alexander Wurz by less than one tenth of a second even though he had not driven an F1 car since 2003.

But Wurz's time was far from representative after he suffered a gearbox problem early in the morning. His car stopped as he returned to the pits on the first lap of the day and he only got back out on the track 45 minutes before the end of the day, completing just ten laps in total.

The only other driver testing was BMW-Sauber's Nick Heidfeld, who marked his return to the Swiss team after spending the last two seasons at Jordan and Williams. His best lap was eight tenths slower than Paffett, and he caused the second red flag of the day when his car stopped on the track at 3.30pm.

Today's times:

Pos  Driver        Team                Tyres  Time     Laps
 1.  Paffett       McLaren-Mercedes     (M)  1:20.586   57
 2.  Wurz          McLaren-Mercedes     (M)  1:20.665   10
 3.  Heidfeld      BMW-Sauber           (M)  1:21.356   30

All Timing Unofficial