The middle section of the Wednesday testing session was influenced by some light rain, which made it practically impossible for the other drivers to challenge Paffett's time, set in the early stages of the the Jerez action. Lap times dropped by 5 to 6 seconds for each driver, but things started to improve for the rookie testers in the final 60 minutes of the afternoon.
It was then that Williams' new official race driver Nico Hulkenberg managed to get closer to the British racer – approximately one half of second behind him – finishing the day before Red Bull Racing's Daniel Ricciardo. The Australian had initially topped the morning session at the Spanish circuit, but the afternoon caught him some 0.060 seconds behind Hulkenberg, in 3rd place.
The 4th and last driver within one second behind the McLaren tester was Paffett's very teammate in the DTM – both are driving works' machineries in the German series – Paul di Resta. The British driver took his VJM02 to the finish line some 0.672 seconds behind Paffett, despite doing only the morning programme with Force India.
Di Resta handed the drive to American racer JR Hildebrand for the second part of the testing session – when the rain had already affected the car's grip on the slippery track – and the latter finished the day in 8th place.
Here are the complete lap times recorded by the rookie drivers on the Jerez circuit on Wednesday:
01. Gary Paffett (McLaren) 1:18.718
02. Nico Hulkenberg (Williams) 1:19.184
03. Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull) 1:19.243
04. Paul Di Resta (Force India) 1:19.411
05. Esteban Gutierrez (Sauber) 1:20.190
06. Mike Conway (Brawn) 1:20.222
07. Marcus Ericsson (Brawn) 1:20.440
08. JR Hildebrand (Force India) 1:20.517
09. Jules Bianchi (Ferrari) 1:20.585
10. Lucas Di Grassi (Renault) 1:20.898
11. Ho-Pin Tung (Renault) 1:21.492
12. Mirko Bortolotti (Toro Rosso) 1:21.761
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