Pastor Maldonado will head into the GP2 category's regular season as the man to beat after topping the second and final day of pre-season testing at the Paul Ricard circuit in southern France.
The Venezuelan, one of the few 'summer series' drivers not to be taking advantage of the inaugural Asian championship to prepare for the season, again came to the fore in the afternoon session at Ricard, posting a best lap of 1min 10.062secs around the short 02D circuit solution designed to provide a set-up guide for Monaco - a race he won convincingly last season.
Now with Piquet Sports, Maldonado used the Ricard test to mark himself out as one of the most consistent runners in pre-season, having topped a session on three occasions - with only morning pacesetter Javi Villa having managed to do so more than once in what is shaping up to be a competitive campaign. The Ricard times only served to underline that belief, with Maldonado better Villa's morning mark by 0.017secs and the Spaniard's Racing Engineering team-mate, Giorgio Pantano, coming in third fastest overall, a scant 0.003secs shy of Villa.
Maldonado was safely in the top three as Villa set the early pace, only split from the Spaniard by day one frontrunner Karun Chandhok, with current Asia Series points leader Romain Grosjean fourth and Adrian Valles fifth. Expected pacesetters Luca Filippi and Pantano were both in the top ten - along with Kamui Kobayashi, Davide Valsecchi and Sebastien Buemi - with Chandhok's iSport colleague, Bruno Senna, next up as the top 18 runners all got to within a second of Villa's target time.
![The eyes have it: GP2 Series front-runner Pastor Maldonado [pic credit: GP2 Media]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/393800.jpg)
