Jolyon Palmer maintained his front-running pace during today's (Wednesday) second day of GP2 testing at Barcelona to end ninth quickest overall.

Drivers were once again greeted with sunny but cold conditions for the start of the day's test with many choosing to wait for the track temperature to rise before setting out.

When conditions did improve, Jolyon used the morning session to conduct two new tyre runs using the different compounds and showing good pace on the primes. He finished with a best of 1:29.195s - half a second quicker than his fastest time from yesterday - to secure ninth position during the closely fought session in which the top 18 drivers all lapped within one second of each other.

With only fifteen days left before the season opener in Sepang, Jolyon's main focus for the afternoon stint was on finding the best set up for his iSport car. As such the 21-year-old focused on longer race simulations, including pit stop practice, meaning his P9 time from this morning remained his best.

Speaking afterwards Jolyon said: "This morning we did two new tyre runs and I was very competitive on the prime tyres but when we changed to the options I didn't find enough of a gain and finished P9. We struggled to get enough heat into the tyres as the temperature was very low so we will try and address this tomorrow. This afternoon we had a productive race run where we controlled the tyre degradation well which will be crucial."

Esteban Gutierrez set the fastest overall time for day two with Giedo van der Garde and Max Chilton finishing second and third respectively. The final day of testing at Barcelona concludes tomorrow beginning at 9am local time.

GP2 test, Barcelona day two, combined results:

1. Esteban Gutierrez, Lotus GP, 1:28.740s
2. Giedo Van Der Garde, Catheram, 1:28.744s
3. Max Chilton, Carlin, 1:28.748s
4. Davide Valsecchi, Dams, 1:28.785s
5. Stefano Coletti, Coloni, 1:29.047s
6. Luiz Razia, Arden, 1:29.065s
7. James Calado, Lotus GP, 1:29.100s
8. Fabrizio Crestani, Lazarus, 1:29.150s
9. Jolyon Palmer, iSport, 1:29.195s
10. Fabio Onidi, Coloni, 1:29.198s 

Image courtesy of Craig Boon, Octane Photographic