Wickens heads Barcelona testing

The Carlin driver was uncertain if he would complete the afternoon's running, however, owing to impending commitments with Canada's A1GP team in China.

"It depends on how our test programme goes here as to whether I do the full afternoon," he said. "It shouldn't be a problem for me to jump between the Formula Renault 3.5 and A1GP cars as we have an hour of practice in Shanghai."

Bertrand Baguette was second fastest for International Draco Racing, ahead of Tech 1 Racing's Charles Pic.

"It has helped that I signed up early and did six days running with the team last year," said Baguette. "We've got to know each other, and I am alternating spending one month in Italy with the team and one month in Belgium.

"It's one of the rules of Draco to spend time at the factory, and it is no hardship for me being in Italy. Wins are our minimum requirement this year. The team has had enough of finishing second, we want the championship."

Guillaume Moreau started the day behind schedule, having suffered multiple alternator failures on his KTR car on Wednesday. The Frenchman, who was a class winner in the Le Mans series at the circuit last weekend, completed 32 laps.

Julian Theobald propped up the timesheets as he familiarised himself with his Fortec mount. The German is being evaluated for a race seat by the team, who have yet to rule out Roldan Rodriguez, among others, for the drive.

Rodriguez pulled out of the test to participate in the final GP2 Asia race with FMS.

Andy Soucek was on hand to offer advice to RC Motorsport's Aleix Alcaraz, who is part of the Circuit de Catalunya's young driver support programme.

The 17 year-old, who is making the daunting step up from a season in Formula Renault 2.0s, had struggled earlier in the test with a persistent long brake pedal and finished 20th.

Pos  Driver                Team                Time      Laps
 1.  Robert Wickens        Carlin              1:32.971   35
 2.  Bertrand Baguette     Draco               1:33.330   30
 3.  Charles Pic           Tech 1              1:33.396   51
 4.  Giedo Van der Garde   P1                  1:33.467   40
 5.  Mikhail Aleshin       Carlin              1:33.480   31
 6.  Miguel Molina         Prema               1:33.551   36
 7.  Marco Barba           Draco               1:33.843   25
 8.  Salvador Duran        Interwetten         1:33.962   30
 9.  Fabio Carbone         Ultimate/Signature  1:33.985   30
10.  Marcos Martinez       Pons                1:34.064   28
11.  Alvaro Barba          Prema               1:34.064   28
12.  Mario Romancini       Epsilon             1:34.065   46
13.  Borja Garcia          RC                  1:34.142   32
14.  Alexandre Marsoin     Epsilon             1:34.149   47
15.  Pasquale Di Sabatino  Comtec              1:34.155   48
16.  Claudio Cantelli      Ultimate/Signature  1:34.356   45
17.  Guillaume Moreau      KTR                 1:34.396   32
18.  Maximo Cortes         Pons                1:34.471   28
19.  Pippa Mann            P1                  1:34.529   35
20.  Aleix Alcaraz         RC                  1:34.585   35
21.  Julien Jousse         Tech 1              1:34.611   32
22.  James Walker          Fortec              1:35.214   25
23.  Pablo Sanchez         Interwetten         1:35.818   17
24.  Daniil Move           KTR                 1:35.966   48
25.  Julian Theobald       Fortec              1:37.459   39