Nobuharu Matsushita ended the final day of the post-season GP2 test in Abu Dhabi at the top of the timesheets, setting a fastest lap time of 1:48.313 in the evening session.
The ART driver, who finished the year 9th in the overall standings, taking a win in Hungary, pipped Thursday’s pace-setter Nicolas Latifi’s DAMS car by just over 0.1s, with Prema’s Sergey Sirotkin completing the top three.
Earlier in the day, it was Mitch Evans, driving for Campos, who set the fastest time in an ultra-tight session interrupted by three red flags.
The first stoppage was caused by the spun car of Sean Gelael whose Campos machine had come to a stand-still at turn 18. Two more red flags for the stranded cars of Pierre Gasly (Prema) and Richie Stanaway (Carlin) punctuated the session.
Gasly was sidelined with a gearbox issue and only managed four laps in the morning session before having to sit out the rest of the day as the problems persisted.
Evans eventually finished just 0.04s ahead of DAMS’ Oliver Rowland in second. Rowland had impressively led the way ever since Stanaway’s stoppage, the Formula Renault 3.5 champion managed to get into the 1m49s for the first time in the session before Evans got the better of him late on.
Naturally, the evening session brought cooler conditions than the morning and this allowed the cars to set even faster times.
Initially, it was Evans again who set the pace, but his time was quickly beaten by both Rowland and Matsushita. The Japanese driver would keep the top spot until the end of the session.
Sirotkin was able to edge ahead of Rowland in the closing stages to take third with GP3 Series runner-up Luca Ghiotto rounding out the top five.
