Copyright GP2 Media Service
Frenchman Pierre Gasly tops the time sheets after the first day of pre-season testing at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi.
The opening session of the tests took place under a sunny sky. Racing Engineering’s Alexander Rossi was the first man out on track, but a dirty track and wind meant that most drivers only did installation laps without setting fast laptimes. During the first two hours of the morning session, teams and drivers focused on aero testing until the session was interrupted by a software issue.
The session was red-flagged for half an hour while adjustments were made, and as the track went live again the second Racing Engineering driver Jordan King jumped up to the top of the time sheet. Soon afterwards it was Trident’s Rene Binder who set the fastest laptime, until Rossi took back the top spot.
In the last stage of the session there was another interruption as Marlon Stockinger stopped on track at Turn 5. Green flags were shown with 8 minutes left to run, and the drivers used them well. The laptimes dropped as the track became cleaner, and at the chequered flag it was Alexander Rossi who held P1 with a laptime of 1:50.845, followed by the DAMS duo Pierre Gasly and Alex Lynn.
In the afternoon session it was ART’s Stoffel Vandoorne who set the pace during the first hour, being the first to dip under 1:50. Pierre Gasly eventually managed to go 3 hundredths of a second faster than the Belgian, before he himself was beaten by Mitch Evans around the halfway mark. Rio Haryanto also made an effort to conquer the top spot, but his lap was two tenths of a second slower than the lap of Evans.
Julian Leal caused the third red flag period of the day when he stopped on track at Turn 17 during the last hour of the session. The action resumed with 30 minutes left to run. King took the top spot from Gasly, but lost it to Sirotkin shortly afterwards. Gasly reclaimed P1 with a laptime of 1:49.089, pushing closer to the 1m48s barrier. However, it was Arthur Pic who broke the barrier first, but Gasly followed suit soon afterwards, bettering the laptime of his compatriot to retake the top spot.
Pierre Gasly stayed in P1 ahead of Arthur Pic until the end of the session, while the Trident duo Raffaele Marciello and Rene Binder claimed P3 and P4 respectively in the dying minutes of the session. Sirotkin finished in P5 ahead of Mitch Evans. Haryanto, Rossi, and Alex Lynn round out the Top 10.
