Pic quickest in Barcelona test

The French driver's time of 1m32.085s, recorded on Monday afternoon, provided Pic with a four-tenth of a second advantage over Draco's Marco Barba. Having topped last month's group test at Valencia, Barba confirmed his status as a leading candidate for success in 2009.

Two other winter testing pace-setters, James Walker and Miguel Molina, staged an evenly matched contest during the morning. At the end of the first hour, the duel was settled in favour of Walker who held off the Spaniard at the top of the timesheets by just 0.005s. The pair's efforts equated to third and fourth overall at the close of play.

"It gets complicated when you start converting times for the whole day," said P1 Motorsport's Walker, "but this morning everyone used one, if not two, new sets of tyres, and like for like we were quickest. We used two new sets. Straight out we set a 1m33.1s, which on it's own turned out to be quite good, before making some adjustments to the car to replicate a qualifying set-up.

"That produced the 32.5. The conditions were good, but in the afternoon I think that the track was faster, and we were then running with a heavy fuel load. As the test ended we had some rain, and there could be some more on the way for tomorrow."

The top six was completed by Pons Racing's Marcos Martinez in fifth, ahead of Carlin Motorsport driver Oliver Turvey. Both men recorded their fastest times in the afternoon.

Just 22 cars, from an expected field of 26, were on hand at this final opportunity to test before the opening race weekend at Barcelona on April 19th.

At Comtec, Riki Christodoulo filled in for Alex Marsoin. Christodoulou has tested extensively with Fortec Motorsport's British F3 squad over recent weeks, and the 20-year-old Formula Renault UK race winner acquitted himself respectably with the 10th fastest time of the day, within a second of Pic's benchmark.

The much-anticipated first appearance of the year by Italian squad RC Motorsport took place with former Comtec driver Pasquale di Sabatino at the wheel of a solitary machine.

Following his Indy Racing League exploits, Franck Perera made a return to Europe for an outing with Interwetten Racing. The Frenchman was on familiar territory, having made his only World Series race start at the Catalan circuit with Walter Raus's team at the final meeting of 2006.

Tobias Hegewald again filled the Austrian team's second seat in preparation for his FIA Formula Two assault. Interwetten are set to run Mihai Marinescu today.

Tech 1 Racing's new signing Daniil Move propped up the bottom of the classification. The Russian displayed signs of rustiness, having been out of action since departing from the KTR team mid-season last year.

KTR was absent from proceedings, and the Belgian team has now missed all three collective tests of 2009. Team boss Kurt Mollekens was reported to be in continued negotiations with drivers last Friday.

Angelo Rosin's Vicenza based Prema Powerteam fielded a car for the Flavio Briatore-associated Italian Frankie Provenzano, alongside Colombian Omar Leal. Prema was previously thought to have been close to concluding a deal with Italian F3 runner-up, and A1GP Team Italy regular, Edoardo Piscopo.

Pos Driver                    Team            Time         Gap
 1. Charles Pic               Tech 1          1:32.085
 2. Marco Barba               Draco           1:32.502  +0.417
 3. James Walker              P1              1:32.510  +0.425
 4. Miguel Molina             Ultimate        1:32.515  +0.430
 5. Marcos Martinez           Pons            1:32.619  +0.534
 6. Oliver Turvey             Carlin          1:32.619  +0.534
 7. Adrian Valles             Epsilon         1:32.784  +0.699
 8. Bertrand Baguette         Draco           1:32.833  +0.748
 9. Jaime Alguersuari         Carlin          1:33.004  +0.919
10. Riki Christodoulou        Comtec          1:33.084  +0.999
11. Franck Perera             Interwetten     1:33.170  +1.085
12. Fairuz Fauzy              Fortec          1:33.233  +1.148
13. Pasquale di Sabatino      RC              1:33.264  +1.179
14. Greg Mansell              Ultimate        1:33.506  +1.421
15. Chris van der Drift       Epsilon         1:33.556  +1.471
16. Anton Nebylitskiy         Comtec          1:33.649  +1.564
17. Federico Leo              Pons            1:33.757  +1.672
18. Sten Pentus               Fortec          1:33.874  +1.789
19. Frankie Provenzano        Prema           1:33.924  +1.839
20. Tobias Hegewald           Interwetten     1:34.109  +2.024
21. Julian Leal               Prema           1:34.162  +2.077
22. Daniil Move               Tech 1          1:34.521  +2.436