Fukuzumi tops opening 2017 practice
ART Grand Prix’s Nirei Fukuzumi has topped the timesheets in the first practice session of the 2017 GP3 season at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
The Japanese racer set a lap time of 1m35.933s and led the majority of the session as the only driver to get below the 1m36 mark.
Late times set by Arjun Maini and Marcos Siebert jumped the pair up to second and third as the session came to a close, but Fukuzumi would end the session with an advantage of 0.353s over the newly-signed Haas development driver.
This is the first time that Siebert has ever finished a GP3 session inside the top-three after spells in the collection of drivers with the 10 best lap times during testing.
Arden’s Leonardo Pulcini continued his form from the final day of pre-season testing to place fourth ahead of the ART pair of George Russell and Jack Aitken. The duo had previously joined Fukuzumi and Anthoine Hubert in an ART 1-2-3-4 early in the session.
Niko Kari was classified seventh ahead of Ryan Tveter and Steijn Schothorst. Campos’ Raoul Hyman completed the top-10, just 0.584s behind the leader.
After leading many pre-season sessions, Dorian Boccolacci was a shock inclusion in the bottom-half, finishing just 16th as the slowest Trident driver.
Jenzer’s Alessio Lorandi finished 19th and last, 2.294s adrift of Fukuzumi’s time.