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Racing Engineering sets the pace in Jerez

Published on 31 Mar 2016 08:40
0
By: Rob Veenstra

It has been a fruitful day for Briton Jordan King who set the best laptime in a 1:24.449 in the morning session – one tenth quicker than rookie Antonio Giovinazzi and Nobuharu Matsushita. In the afternoon, Rapax Gustav Malja was quickest.

Cold temperatures and sunny conditions graced the paddock this morning on day 2 of the second pre-season test at Circuito de Jerez, Spain. When the track went green, the pair of DAMS drivers were first to feed onto the track, soon followed by the rest of the field. King set the early pace in 1:26.048 on Hard Pirelli tyres but Sergey Sirotkin bettered the Briton’s laptime and topped the timesheets in a 1:25.710.

Thirty minutes into the session, all cars had completed at least one installation lap. Tuesday’s quickest driver Norman Nato was the first man to dip under 1m25s but Giovinazzi found some extra pace to lap the Spanish track in a 1:24.545. King reclaimed P1 after improving on the Italian’s best time by one tenth.

One hour into the session, Medium Pirelli tyres made an appearance on several cars. There was a first short red flag period courtesy of Raffaele Marciello who ran wide at Turn 14 and clipped the barrier before returning to the pits. Soon after the restart, Sirotkin caused a second red flag period by clipping the barrier at Turn 15. The remaining two hours of the session saw the teams concentrate on their testing programme.

In the closing stages, the proceedings were shortly halted for a third time after Luca Ghiotto stopped on track between turns 7 and 8. At the chequered flag, King remained top ahead of Giovinazzi and Matsushita. Pierre Gasly, Nato, Sirotkin, Alex Lynn, Arthur Pic, Gustav Malja and Ghiotto completed the top ten.

The afternoon session opened in warmer temperatures with Swede Gustav Malja setting the early pace in a 1:26.319. In the opening hour, Marciello caused a brief red flag period after he stopped on track between Turns 6 and 7. After the restart, teams and drivers focused mainly on long runs, practice starts and pit stops. The remainder of the day was trouble-free with Racing Engineering’s King completing the most laps (72).

Circuito de Jerez - 30 March 2016

Driver

Team

Time

Difference

#
1

Jordan King

Racing Engineering

1:24.429

94
2

Antonio Giovinazzi

Prema Racing

1:24.545

+0.116

54
3

Nobuharu Matsushita

ART Grand Prix

1:24.579

+0.150

91
4

Pierre Gasly

Prema Racing

1:24.594

+0.165

78
5

Norman Nato

Racing Engineering

1:24.634

+0.205

79
6

Sergey Sirotkin

ART Grand Prix

1:24.689

+0.260

74
7

Alex Lynn

DAMS

1:24.696

+0.267

49
8

Arthur Pic

Team Rapax

1:25.049

+0.620

51
9

Gustav Malja

Team Rapax

1:25.088

+0.659

60
10

Luca Ghiotto

Trident

1:25.098

+0.669

26
11

Marvin Kirchhöfer

Carlin

1:25.202

+0.773

74
12

Raffaele Marciello

Russian Time

1:25.241

+0.812

44
13

Nicholas Latifi

DAMS

1:25.259

+0.830

55
14

Mitch Evans

Campos Racing

1:25.398

+0.969

60
15

Oliver Rowland

MP Motorsport

1:25.671

+1.242

44
16

Daniël de Jong

MP Motorsport

1:25.763

+1.334

43
17

Artem Markelov

Russian Time

1:25.867

+1.438

75
18

Jimmy Eriksson

Arden International

1:26.081

+1.652

71
19

Sean Gelael

Campos Racing

1:26.136

+1.707

75
20

Philo Paz Armand

Trident

1:26.301

+1.872

67
21

Nabil Jeffri

Arden International

1:26.493

+2.064

58

GP2 News Raffaele Marciello Pierre Gasly Alex Lynn Jordan King Nobuharu Matsushita Sergey Sirotkin Norman Nato Antonio Giovinazzi Gustav Malja Arthur Pic Luca Ghiotto DAMS Pirelli Racing Engineering Rapax