Ferrari continues to set the pace at Barcelona. However, whereas on Tuesday it was McLaren's Pedro de la Rosa that spoiled the Maranello party, posting the second best time of the day and thereby splitting the scarlet duo, today it was Nick Heidfeld's turn.

It was another cold day with a dry start, but some rain at 10.00 meant about an hour of running was lost.

Luca Badoer and Felipe Massa continued with the programme begun yesterday consisting of long run tests, experimentation with new components and working on the set-up of the 248 F1. The Brazilian completed 84 laps, posting a best time of 1:16.403, while Badoer, who completed 71 laps, was 1.052s off the pace.

Nick Heidfeld continued testing the new transmission for BMW. He also did long and short runs on the new Bridgestone tyres, and the team appeared happy with his day's work.

Robert Kubica had the same goal as Nick, to work on the car's set up on the new tyres, and concentrated on this rather than testing new parts. Both drivers practiced starts in the morning.

This was Heidfeld's last day of testing this week, his place will be taken for the third and final day by Timo Glock, who is having his first test with the German team. Kubica will take over work on the new transmission while Glock will have what the team describe as a "normal first day of testing".

de la Rosa and Lewis Hamilton continued with the Bridgestone Potenza assessment work for McLaren, alongside ongoing evaluation of the brakes and the aerodynamic programme.

Hamilton suffered a mechanical failure on his right rear wheel assembly, which caused him to stop out on track. He then spent some time in the garage in the afternoon as the team changed set-ups as part of the scheduled evaluation process, before returning to the track to continue his programme.

Today was Toyota's first day of testing this week, and Olivier Panis was joined by Kamui Kobayashi, a member of the Toyota Young Drivers Program, and winner of the qualification race at Macau earlier this month.

Panis concentrated on the Bridgestone tyres that the team will use in 2007, while the Japanese youngster spent his day getting used to the car and putting in mileage on various systems. The Japanese team will continue its test tomorrow with race drivers Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli.

"Kamui did well today because he had to learn the circuit as well as the handling of the car," said test team manager, Gerd Pfeiffer. "He put in a lot of laps and he was very careful in the car and always aware of the other competitors on the track. Both he and Olivier put in mileage on the gearbox and engine and they looked at different weight distributions and software.

"Of course, the main focus of this week's test is to try out the new Bridgestone tyres which we will use in 2007 but it is still too early to judge how the rubber performs. We need consistent conditions to compare and contrast tyres and today the circuit was never really stable enough to draw any real conclusions. Tomorrow we will have the race drivers in the cockpit and we will use the track time to get a clearer picture about the new tyres and how we can get the package to work at its best."