Force India driver Vitantonio Liuzzi made most of the sunny conditions to clock the fifth fastest time on the second test day.

Liuzzi finished ahead of comeback man Michael Schumacher in a Mercedes car - on the second official test day at the Circuit de Jerez.

After the rain-lashed session on the opening day, the weather remained clear and dry throughout, allowing the team to gather vital systems data.

Liuzzi put the VJM03 through its paces, completing 80 laps with a best time of 1:20.754 which was over three-tenths ahead of Schumacher's best effort of 1:21.083.

The morning's programme on Thursday concentrated on aero development while the afternoon's running included comparison runs of the new Bridgestone tyre compounds available this year.

"I think that we can be pretty happy about the day. We covered a lot of laps and a lot of the test items we wanted to. For sure we still have to look into a few more areas but overall the car is responding well and reacts to all the changes," said Liuzzi, who would now pave way for Adrian Sutil.

"We tested different settings and different conditions and overall it was always positive, so I have to say we can be really satisfied about how it's going," he said.

Chief race engineer Dominic Harlow said the car behaved on the expected lines which was a boost for the side.

"We used the morning for various aerodynamic measurements and made some comparisons of the 2010 dry tyres along with getting a balance in the VJM03," Harlow said.

"Since it was the first time the car has run in the dry we have a fair amount of new data to analyse, but so far the car appears to be performing as we expected. Adrian will now continue work as he takes over the car for the remainder of this test," he said.

BMW Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi topped the time-sheets with a fastest lap of 1m 19.950s that was just over seven-hundredths of a second quicker than Toro Rosso's Sebastien Buemi.

Jenson Button (1:20.618) came third for McLaren, ahead of Wiliams' Nico Hulkenberg (1:20.629).

Behind Liuzzi was Schumacher who completed 124 laps in the MGP W01, evaluating tyres compounds and carrying out set-up work.

"I am very happy with how the day went today even if we could not finish our schedule completely due to red flags," said the German.

"However I managed to complete a lot of laps which is very precious to me. A new car, a new team and new conditions, therefore our first goal has to be to make the car reliable," he said.

Seventh fastest was Fernando Alonso in the Ferrari, ahead of Renault's Robert Kubica, Red Bull's Mark Webber and Virgin's Timo Glock.