Wickens tops the times at Estoril

The Canadian edged out this morning's pace-setter, Bertrand Baguette, in the dying seconds of the session.

The top three drivers were supremely closely matched, just a tenth separating Wickens from Fabio Carbone's Ultimate-Signature entry in third.

Salvador Duran ran new rubber on his Interwetten.com car to post the fourth fastest time, having finished 12th on old tyres in the first session. Rookie Marco Barba was fifth on his fourth visit to a circuit he is familiar with from his Spanish F3 outings.

Champion elect Giedo van der Garde encountered trouble with slower cars and ended the day down in sixth.

"I had traffic on every lap," said van der Garde, "I didn't have one free lap at all. We've added up the sectors and theoretically we could do a high 1:26s, so it is still looking good.

"My manager is coming tomorrow and I hope we will make a decision this weekend about competing in GP2 Asia. Being here is important, but so is the future so we need to see."

Several drivers, including last year's pole winner Julien Jousse, did not run new tyres in the afternoon, making the times slightly difficult to gauge.