Pierre Gasly was the fastest man in today’s GP2 free practice session at the Silverstone Circuit with a lap of 1m39.890s, about six-tenths of a second faster than last year’s pole position lap by Sergey Sirotkin (ART GP). Sirotkin himself was the second-fastest man of the session, ahead of his successor at Rapax, Arthur Pic.
The free practice session took place under a clouded sky, with temperatures around 20°C. Gustav Malja (Rapax) was the first man out on the track, followed by Alex Lynn (DAMS), who initiated the first round of flying laps. The laptimes kept tumbling down quickly until they evened out just above the one minute and 40 seconds barrier. The battle at the top was extremely close at times: Gasly claimed the top spot with a laptime of 1m40.723s, and Norman Nato (Racing Engineering) jumped up to second place only three thousands of a second slower than his compatriot. Jordan King (Racing Engineering), Lynn, Pic, and Sirotkin all had short stints at the top. The Russian was the one who got closest to the one minute and 40-second barrier, with a laptime of 1m40.045s, ahead of Gasly who was behind Sirotkin by only one thousand of a second.
With 30 minutes left, the drivers began to make their pit stops, and Gasly decided to stay out and make use of the less busy track: The Frenchman flew around the track to leave both the one minute and 40 barrier as well as Sirotkin’s pole position laptime from the previous year far behind.
No more improvements were made in the second half of the session. Luca Ghiotto stopped his Trident car on track and caused a virtual safety car, and his teammate Philo Paz Armand received a black and white flag warning for exceeding the track limits.
When the chequered flag fell, it was still Gasly leading from Sirotkin and Pic. Antonio Giovinazzi (Prema Racing) was the fourth-fastest man of the session ahead of Lynn, Nato, Oliver Rowland (MP Motorsport), King, returnee Nobuharu Matsushita (ART GP), and Artem Markelov (Russian Time).
