Ricciardo tops second Aragon practice

The British Formula 3 champion recorded a lap of 1m43.478s, an improvement of two tenths of a second over his morning's effort.

Series returnee Mikhail Aleshin was the Australian's closest challenger for Carlin, while session one pace-setter Sten Pentus remained in contention in third.

"Today was pretty frustrating at first," said Aleshin. "This isn't one of my favourite circuits, but even so we struggled more than I expected in the first session this morning.

"We changed quite a lot on the car between the first and second session and everything came together when we put new tyres on the car this afternoon. The balance of the car felt really good and I feel happy with our low downforce set-up. Based on the work we've done today, I think we're in pretty good shape for qualifying tomorrow morning."

Draco's Nathanael Berthon sat at the top of the timesheets for the first seven minutes of the hour and fifteen minute session, before being displaced by Ricciardo.

The Romagnat driver was made to settle for fourth spot, ahead of Federico Leo and Keisuke Kunimoto. Former Macau winner Kunimoto was fastest of all over the first sector of the 3.3 mile circuit.

Following a relatively subdued morning, Argentinean Esteban Guerrieri appeared to show signs of being acclimatised to his new Czech team ISR in eighth. The former Formula Renault 3.5 race winner has been out of action since the 2009 final at Motorland last October.

Pos  Driver             Team             Time       Gap
 1.  Daniel Ricciardo   Tech 1           1m43.478s
 2.  Mikhail Aleshin    Carlin           1m43.681s  + 0.203
 3.  Sten Pentus        Fortec           1m43.698s  + 0.220
 4.  Nathanael Berthon  Draco            1m43.788s  + 0.310
 5.  Federico Leo       Pons             1m43.807s  + 0.329
 6.  Keisuke Kunimoto   Epsilon Euskadi  1m43.851s  + 0.373
 7.  Jan Charouz        P1               1m43.972s  + 0.494
 8.  Esteban Guerrieri  ISR              1m43.998s  + 0.520
 9.  Daniel Zampieri    Pons             1m44.028s  + 0.550
10.  Anton Nebylitskiy  KMP              1m44.032s  + 0.554
11.  Daniil Move        Junior Lotus     1m44.090s  + 0.612
12.  Brendon Hartley    Tech 1           1m44.098s  + 0.620
13.  Julian Leal        Draco            1m44.109s  + 0.631
14.  Stefano Coletti    Comtec           1m44.339s  + 0.861
15.  Victor Garcia      KMP              1m44.416s  + 0.938
16.  Albert Costa       Epsilon Euskadi  1m44.438s  + 0.960
17.  Jon Lancaster      Fortec           1m44.460s  + 0.982
18.  Walter Grubmuller  P1               1m44.593s  + 1.115
19.  Greg Mansell       Comtec           1m44.697s  + 1.219
20.  Nelson Panciatici  Junior Lotus     1m44.848s  + 1.370
21.  Jake Rosenzweig    Carlin           1m44.962s  + 1.484
22.  Filip Salaquarda   ISR              1m45.313s  + 1.835
23.  Sergio Canamasas   Interwetten      1m45.765s  + 2.287
24.  Bruno Mendez       Interwetten      1m45.968s  + 2.490