Jenzer Motorsport’s Alessio Lorandi has gone fastest on the second day of GP3 post-season testing at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi.
The Italian set a lap time of 1m55.734s, the fastest of the day, to lead the afternoon session by 0.080s from Trident’s Santino Ferrucci.
In the morning session, Arden International’s Niko Kari was fastest, the only driver of the opening session to reach the 1m55s with a time of 1m55.949s, ahead of ART Grand Prix’s Jack Aitken and Lorandi.
Trident’s Matheus Leist finished in fourth, with ART’s Arjun Maini fifth and Arden’s Steijn Schothorst sixth.
ART’s Anthoine Hubert finished seventh in his first GP3 session, with Trident’s Giuliano Alesi, ART’s Max Defourny and Campos Racing’s Leonardo Pulcini completing the top ten.
These ten drivers were covered by 0.936s, with all 23 drivers taking part in the session separated by 2.808s, with Campos Racing’s Petru Florescu in last position.
With 31 laps around the track, Schothorst and Hubert both set the highest amount of laps of the opening session of the day.
Later in the day, Lorandi improved by six tenths from his time in the previous session to lead the way ahead of Ferrucci and Schothorst.
After taking part in the final two race weekends of the season in Malaysia and Abu Dhabi, it is the first time that the Jenzer driver has led a GP3 session.
Kari fell to fourth in the classification after going just 0.018s slower than his morning time, with Hubert fifth, Koiranen GP’s Raoul Hyman sixth and Aitken seventh.
Leist, Maini and Arden’s Kevin Joerg completed the top ten, that were separated by just 0.757s. The whole grid were covered by 3.582s, with Florescu again in 23rd and last.
Maini set the most laps of any driver in the afternoon, completing 38 laps of the circuit. There were three red flag periods when Alesi, Ferrucci and Campos’ Julian Falchero stopped on track at different points on the circuit.
Drivers return for a third and final day of testing tomorrow (December 2) with another morning and afternoon session of laps before the 2016 season ends.
