Having set the pace during two days of GP2 testing at Paul Ricard, Kamui Kobayashi repeated the feat at Shanghai ahead of the second season of racing in the GP2 Asia series.

The DAMS driver was quickest in both the morning and afternoon sessions at the Chinese circuit, which will play host to the first rounds of the new season next weekend.

The morning part of the session saw the Japanese racer only complete eleven laps, but that was enough for his to edge out Durango's Davide Valsecchi at the head of the times; the pair split by just 0.028secs at the end of the session. Roldan Rodriquez slotted into third place while Giedo Van der Garde was the only other person to break the 1min 48secs marker.

Further down the order, Super Nova pairing Javier Villa and James Jakes, and Qi-Meritus.Mahara's Alex Yoong all failed to set representative lap-times.

Kobayashi was again fastest in the afternoon, although this time by a larger margin of three tenths of a second after he was the only person to lap under 1min 46s. His best time of 1min 45.963secs put him comfortably ahead of countryman Sakon Yamamoto, while Rodriguez was once again inside the top three on the times.

Jerome D'Ambrosio, Van der Garde and Andi Zuber rounded out the top six.