Hamilton hinted at McLaren's pre-season pace by going fastest in the Jerez test

Lewis Hamilton produced the fastest lap of the rain-hit second winter test on the final day in Jerez.

McLaren's 2008 champion clocked one minute 19.583 second during a spell of dry running after Force India's Adrian Sutil had led for much of the day.

Michael Schumacher's Mercedes, Felipe Massa of Ferrari and Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel all stopped on the track but resumed later with no issues.

The 10 teams will stay in Jerez for the third test which starts on Wednesday.

The new Lotus team will join them after launching their 2010 car on Friday, which means only US F1 and Campos Meta, of this season's four new entrants, have yet to show their hand.

US F1 are expected to do their pre-season running close to their base in Charlotte, North Carolina but there are question marks over Campos's participation as they struggle to raise the required funding.

Rain dampened three of the four testing days in Jerez which clouded the comparative performance of the teams still further.

There is a lot of speculation going on but it's very interesting Michael Schumacher

The ban on refuelling during races means testing provides vital time for experimenting with differing fuel loads but the teams do not release information on how much fuel they are carrying.

"It's very tough to understand the order of the teams just yet as everyone can play so much with the fuel loads," added Michael Schumacher, who finished fifth fastest for Mercedes on Saturday.

"So there is a lot of speculation going on but it's very interesting."

Mercedes team principal Ross Brawn added: "It's been a difficult week weather-wise for all of the teams out in Jerez.

"However, we have achieved a significant amount of mileage in both the wet and dry conditions and completed some important test items on our pre-season testing programme."

Hamilton set his leading time when the track had completely dried out in the late afternoon.

With a fresh set of tyres, the 25-year-old strung together a succession of hot laps to finish more than half a second clear of Sutil and eclipsing Toro Rosso driver Jamie Alguersuari's previous best mark, set on Friday, by just under four-tenths of a second.

Felipe Massa clocked up the miles for Ferrari as he drove an exhausting 160 laps - 47 more than Hamilton, who along with Sauber's Pedro de la Rosa were the only other drivers to top 100 laps on Saturday.

"I never drove as many kilometres as today, either in an F1 car nor anywhere else," Massa told Ferrari's Twitter page.

Newcomers Virgin Racing were also able to gauge the performance of their debut F1 car on Saturday after a dismal first three days in Jerez.

Timo Glock only ran five laps on the opening day before the front wing fell off the car on Thursday, ending his session. After a wait for new parts to be flown in, Lucas di Grassi only managed eight laps on Friday.

606: DEBATE We're starting to get a better idea of ultimate pace but for race distances its still anyones guess add Guitargraham

The Brazilian rookie notched up 63 laps on the final day of the test, posting the ninth fastest time of 1:22.912.

"After three days of very little running, in the space of one day we have completed lots of mileage in the dry," said Di Grassi. "The car was behaving much better after the work we did since Friday and what we have achieved is a very good start for our team."

Red Bull, meanwhile, completed their first winter test following the launch of the RB6 on Wednesday. Vettel lost three hours of running time on Saturday because of a fuel pump failure but still notched up 90 laps.

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