Rubens Barrichello topped the timesheets on the second day of testing at Jerez de la Frontera today as the weather continued to compromise pre-season preparations.

While the rain did ease off a times, there was never a moment when the track was completely dry, with strong gusting winds adding to the teams' obvious frustration what with the season opener being only three weeks away.

While there weren't as many red flags as yesterday, there were a few, most notably when Heikki Kovalainen crashed shortly after 13:00, thereby bringing his team's day to an early end.

While times are almost impossible to compare at the best of times, what with drivers running different fuel loads, in these conditions when drivers have the smallest of windows in which to 'go for it', it is almost impossible to draw any form of reasonable conclusion.

Barrichello completed 98 laps - the most today - on his way to posting the best time, albeit almost 7s off the pace he was running last week.

"Rubens finished off another wet day in Jerez having covered a lot of mileage for reliability," said Sam Michael. "He also completed some systems checks and carried out a programme of pitstop practice. All the pit stops were done under wet conditions and we're working on some refinements for tomorrow when Nico will take over."

"It was cold and wet but we still did some useful work and practiced pit stops, which is good experience for me," said Vitaly Petrov, who ended the day second quickest. "I'm now hoping that the final test in Barcelona will give us better weather so I can do some dry running before we arrive in Bahrain."

"It was another frustrating day with the changeable weather," added Alan Permane, "but we made the most of it to run both the wet and intermediate tyres. In the afternoon, when the track was damp, we chose to carry out some procedural work, including practice pit stops. Overall Vitaly was quite happy with the car and showed good pace today."

Yesterday's pace-setter, Sebastian Vettel, was third quickest as the weather forced Red Bull to abandon its plans for aero-testing and set-up work. Consequently, the German used full-wet tyres in the morning and wet and intermediate tyres in the afternoon. He completed 71 laps and the car ran reliably all day.

"Generally, the feeling with the car is good," said Vettel. "The weather has been pretty bad over the last couple of days, which meant we couldn't do a lot of our planned testing, although it's been the same for everyone. It's a shame, as this is one of our three pre-season tests and last week the weather was quite bad also - it seems that Spain is not so happy to have us here! Nevertheless, we have still got some important work done and the car has been reliable; we didn't have any problems. Hopefully we will have better weather in Barcelona next week and conditions will improve here for Mark over the next couple of days."

Nico Rosberg took over the W01 from Michael Schumacher as Mercedes - like its rivals - worked to make the best of the ever-changing conditions. Rosberg completed a wet set-up programme in the morning before focusing on race procedures including practice pit stops in the afternoon when the track conditions became too poor for any meaningful running.