Aitken leads the way in Malaysia GP3 practice
Arden International’s Jack Aitken has gone fastest in the practice session ahead of the seventh and penultimate round of the GP3 season in Malaysia.
The British driver set a lap time of 1m50.883 to lead the way by 0.167 seconds from DAMS’ Kevin Joerg.
It is his best performance in practice in recent times as the Arden cars have finished in the bottom five of this session in both Spa and Monza.
Arden will be looking to continue their recent resurgence of late having moved into second in the Teams’ Championship, however, practice pace largely counts for nothing.
The session was a unique situation for the series, as drivers took part in the first track action of the weekend at the Sepang International Circuit.
Although racing does happen on a Thursday within a Formula One weekend in Monaco, it is not often that GP2 and GP3 have a session before the F1 activities begin.
The session was a competitive one with many trading fastest lap times, with drivers having no interruptions from any red flags and stoppages.
ART Grand Prix’s Nyck de Vries arrived in a paddock for the first time as a race winner and came third, ahead of Aitken’s teammate Jake Dennis.
DAMS’ Santino Ferrucci was fifth fastest, with Jenzer Motorsport’s Arjun Maini leading a trio of ART cars. Alexander Albon, Nirei Fukuzumi and championship leader Charles Leclerc finished above Akash Nandy in the timesheets.
The Malaysian driver completed the top ten at his home track, with the first ten drivers separated by 0.772 seconds.
Campos Racing’s Steijn Schothorst was 11th fastest, ahead of Koiranen GP’s Matt Party and Jack Hughes. Campos’ Alex Palou completed the session in 14th, with Trident’s Antonio Fuoco and Sandy Stuvik in 15th and 16th.
Jenzer’s Alessio Lorandi, setting lap times in his maiden GP3 session, finished 1.400 seconds behind Aitken in 17th. The Italian driver finished the session above Trident’s Giuliano Alesi, Arden’s Tatiana Calderon and Trident’s Artur Janosz.
Campos’ Konstantin Tereschenko and Matevos Isaakyan were the final two drivers to set a time, with the whole grid being separated by 2.321 seconds.