Niko Kari tops Day 1 in Abu Dhabi

Niko Kari

GP3 returnee Niko Kari signed the quickest laptime of today’s trouble-free test session at Yas Marina in a 1:53.890 at the wheel of a Trident car. Jehan Daruvala and Sebastian Fernandez completed top 3.

The 2018 GP3 post-season testing kicked off this morning at the Yas Marina Circuit where all six teams will run their GP3/16 cars for the last time this week over the next three days. When the pitlane opened under the expected blue skies, it was Kari who led the rest of the pack onto the track.

Daruvala set the early pace in a 1:55.327 ahead of Kari, but the Finnish driver went quicker by one tenth to top the timesheet in the opening hour. Devlin DeFrancesco, also at Trident, went P1 in a 1:55.087 and with one hour left in the session, the Canadian was still sitting pretty at the top ahead of Kari, Daruvala, Oscar Piastri, David Beckmann, Logan Sargeant, Jannes Fittje and Ben Hingeley.

In the closing stages, Daruvala dipped under 1m55s to lap the circuit in a 1:54.737. His time remained unbeaten until the checkered flag. DeFrancesco finished P2 ahead of Kari, Yuki Tsunoda, Christian Lundgaard, Beckmann, Felipe Drugovich, Maximilian Fewtrell, Fittje and Sargeant.

Jehan Daruvala

After a break, the action resumed with Kari leading the way in a 1:55.929 ahead of Daruvala. In the first hour, the Indian was demoted from P2 first by Fittje and then by Piastri. Yuki Tsunoda went momentarily top but Kari improved even further to retake the position.

The rest of the session was pretty studious, but in the final hour Kari found even more pace to clock in a laptime of 1:53.890 whilst Daruvala also improved, but not enough to deny the Finnish driver. In the dying minutes, Fernandez moved up to P3 so at the checkered flag, the top 3 was set ahead of DeFrancesco, Beckmann, Tsunoda, Linus Lundqvist, Fittje, Sargeant and Piastri.

Day 2 will open tomorrow at 9am, local time.

2018 Post-season testing – Day 1: morning session classification

2018 Post-season testing – Day 1: afternoon session classification