Continuing from where his teammate Mark Webber left off a day before, the reigning world champion set an unbeatable time of 1:21.865 early in the morning, at the end of a 5-lap stint on the Spanish circuit. While breaking the 1:22 seconds barrier several times before lunch, he did not get to improve that performance by day end, especially since Vettel focused on longer stints in the second part of the day.
Second overall was, surprisingly or not, Scuderia Toro Rosso's Sebastien Buemi, who had a busy day on Wednesday. The Swiss driver began yesterday's running with a race simulation, after which he went for shorter stints in the afternoon. He clocked the Catalonian track in 1:22.396 in the second part of the day, before ending action with several practice pit stop.
Third in the timing reports was Renault's Vitaly Petrov who, like Vettel, set his fastest time of the day early on, at the end of a short stint. The second part of the day was used for longer stints. He and Buemi caused two red flags yesterday, both due to cars stopped on the track.
McLaren Mercedes continued their struggles in testing, despite Lewis Hamilton's 4th fastest time, recorded at the end of a one-lap qualifying type run. Unfortunately, the British team was once again unable to do a race simulation throughout the day due to hydraulic and exhaust-related problems.
Ferrari ended the day with the 5th best time, courtesy of Brazilian driver Felipe Massa, who debuted some new aerodynamic elements for the Scuderia (including a new exhaust system). Despite his poor time, more than one and a half second behind Vettel, Massa's pace was encouraging to say the least in longer runs, where Ferrari and Red Bull were practically at the same level.
Force India's Paul di Resta spent the majority of the morning session inside the Top 3, only to finish 6th overall in the timing reports, ahead of Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi and Mercedes GP's Nico Rosberg.
Like Ferrari, Mercedes have debuted their testing in Barcelona with plenty of changes brought to their 2011 single-seater. Planned to be tested gradually throughout the 4 days of running, Merc's Wednesday package was only good enough for 8th overall, although the German focused mostly on medium to long stints throughout the day.
Team Lotus' Jarno Trulli followed Rosberg in the overall classification, ahead of Williams' unlucky Pastor Maldonado. The Venezuelan saw little track action on Wednesday, as a KERS issue kept his FW33 inside the garage for the majority of the day. He only drove the car for 29 laps, but was still able to finish a couple of seconds ahead of Virgin's Jerome D'Ambrosio.
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