Sebastian Vettel has set the fastest time on the second day of the final pre-season test, the world champion - taking over from teammate Mark Webber who was quickest yesterday - posting the fastest time seen at Barcelona this year.

Enjoying a trouble-free day, Vettel completed 112 laps on his way to posting a best time over half-a-second quicker than anything his rivals could manage, with many in the pitlane confident that the RB7 has eve more in reserve.

“It was a good day and a good time," said the German, "although to be honest, it’s difficult to say where we are, as the lap times of the teams are all over the place.

"We’ve done a lot of laps again today, which is good," he added. "We have had no major problems with reliability throughout testing and the speed looks good as far as we can judge, but I think we have to wait until after Melbourne – maybe in Malaysia or China – to really see where we are.”

As well as completing a series of long and short runs with the RB7 today, the team also completed a series of pit stop practices.

“It was good to have the race team here yesterday and today, to go through pit stop practices,” said head of race engineering Ian Morgan. “Normally, we would do that once in pre-season testing but, as we lost a little time with the weather at the last test, this extra test was a good opportunity to get some more practice in ahead of Melbourne.

“As for the rest of today’s programme, it was much the same as yesterday. Seb did 112 laps without any real problems all day, which is gratifying. It’s always difficult though, to tell what your true position is until you start the season, but our pace looks good at the moment, which is promising.”

After a frustrating day yesterday, things were a lot more positive for Sebastien Buemi and Toro Rosso today, the Swiss posting the second best time of the day.

In the morning, Buemi completed a full race simulation which provided useful data in terms of tyre degradation, car performance and reliability. In the afternoon, the focus switched to running with lower fuel loads, while the team spent almost an hour practicing 'live' pit stops, a very important exercise given the increased number of pit stops likely during this year’s races. Over the course of the day Buemi used Pirelli’s Hard, Soft and Super-soft compounds.

“We can be pleased with what we achieved today," said the Swiss, "because with 120 laps, it meant we completed all the programme we had planned. Apart from the race simulation, I was also able to do a qualifying simulation. We showed a reasonable performance level and the team did a very good job in preparing the car so well. Overall, it has been a productive test. Now, we must wait and see if we can make even more progress over the next two days with Jaime driving and then we can see where we really are when we get to Melbourne."

Vitaly Petrov was an impressive third in the Lotus Renault GP R31, clocked up another 115 laps to demonstrate a clear step forward in terms of the car's overall reliability.

The team improved its understanding of the forces acting on the tyres by running instrumented wheels in the morning. The Russian got a feel for the car over long runs by simulating a race distance this afternoon, using both the hard and soft compounds of dry tyres.