Once again it was Lotus driver Romain Grosjain who topped the timesheets at the Circuit de Catalunya, the Frenchman just one lap shy of also being the busiest driver.

The start of the morning session was delayed by around half an hour due to the thick fog enveloping the circuit, organisers subsequently making up the lost time by allowing the afternoon session to over-run by a similar period.

However, after yesterday's activity which saw 10 drivers complete 982 laps, technical problems and offs, necessitating numerous red flags, meant the 11 drivers running today only completed 808 laps.

Once again, it was Romain Grosjean who topped the timesheets, the Frenchman not only posting the best time of the day but also just one lap shy of being the busiest driver.

"All in all it's been a good day," said Alan Permane. "The E20 was once again very reliable, and we completed a lot of laps. Romain wasn't particularly happy with the car first thing this morning, but we steadily improved it over the day. In the afternoon we completed a full race distance including pit stops. We then went for a couple of setup runs at the end as we had a bit of time left over which was an unexpected surprise. Tyre performance looks good; in particular during the last stint we used a set of hard tyres and managed around 27 laps with very low levels of degradation which is encouraging."

"I'm very happy with the car," added Grosjean, "and it was great that we could still run strongly at the end of the session, even after a long stint. At the start of the day we suffered slightly with tyre degradation, but we changed a few things and this improved as the day went on. Today was the first race distance I've completed in a long time and I'm feeling pretty good. No doubt my neck will be a little sore tomorrow, but the rest of me is fine!"

Jean-Eric Vergne continues to make great progress at Toro Rosso, although the Frenchman completed a lot less laps than planned today because an engine change was required after a failure towards the end of the morning session. That said, the engine had nearly completed its planned running cycle.

In the morning, Vergne worked on an aero evaluation programme, subsequently switching to pit stop practice with his crew. The next time the French youngster sits in the car will be for Friday free practice in Melbourne ahead of his Grand Prix debut.

"Of course it is a shame my winter testing ended with a less than satisfactory day, with not so many laps completed," said Vergne. "However, yesterday we did a lot of running and the team still has two more days here with Daniel and I believe we can therefore make up for lost time. The day was not a complete wash-out, as we got some useful data in the morning and did yet more pit stop practices this afternoon.