Pierre Gasly quickest on Day 2

Pierre Gasly
Pierre Gasly

Cold temperatures and sunny conditions graced the paddock this morning on Day 2 of pre-season testing at Circuit de Catalunya. When the pitlane turned green, Pierre Gasly and Status Grand Prix’s Meindert van Buuren were the first to feed onto the track, quickly followed by the rest of the drivers.

The Frenchman set the early pace in a 1:30.823 on Hard Pirelli tires, but Jordan King bettered the Gasly’s laptime by four tenths to go top. Forty minutes into the session, there was a short red flag period caused by Antonio Giovinazzi who stopped on track at the end of the main straight.

At the restart, Raffaele Marciello was the first man to dip under 1m30s. However, Nobuharu Matsushita found some extra pace to clock in a laptime of 1:28.690 which was enough to take P1. With two hours left on the clock, the Japanese’s teammate Sergey Sirotkin took the top spot on Prime tires in a 1:27.971. He remained unchallenged until the end of a studious session.

At the checkered flag, the Russian finished ahead of Gasly who edged King out of P2 in the final hour. Norman Nato, Marciello, Mitch Evans, Rene Binder, Marvin Kirchhofer, Artem Markelov and Luca Ghiotto completed the top ten.

In the afternoon, it was Oliver Rowland who first went out on track and set the early pace in 1:29.922. Soon after, Giovinazzi lapped quickest in a 1:29.187 – 0.8s ahead of the Briton. One hour into the session, the proceedings were halted twice in a row; firstly with Artem Markelov, followed by Sean Gelael who both stopped in the gravel bed at Turn five. Once the session resumed, King put his head down to sit pretty at the top of the timesheet with a laptime of 1:28.779.

In the final hour, the soft Pirelli tires made an appearance on some cars. Gasly took full advantage of them and went P1 in a blazing laptime of 1:27.703 – +1.076s ahead of King. At the checkered flag, the pair of Gasly and King were followed by Arthur Pic, Giovinazzi, Daniel de Jong, Rowland, Binder, Jimmy Eriksson, Gustav Malja and Ghiotto to complete the top ten.

The final day of this pre-season test will start tomorrow at 09.00 local time.

Morning results

Pos

Driver

Team

Laptime

Laps

1.

Sergey Sirotkin

ART Grand Prix

1:27.971

34

2.

Pierre Gasly

PREMA Racing

1:28.084

39

3.

Jordan King

Racing Engineering

1:28.093

36

4.

Norman Nato

Racing Engineering

1:28.106

39

5.

Raffaele Marciello

RUSSIAN TIME

1:28.194

38

6.

Mitch Evans

Jagonya Ayam Campos Racing

1:28.403

47

7.

Rene Binder

Carlin

1:28.591

36

8.

Marvin Kirchhofer

Carlin

1:28.862

33

9.

Artem Markelov

RUSSIAN TIME

1:28.871

41

10.

Luca Ghiotto

Trident

1:28.873

26

11.

Nobuharu Matsushita

ART Grand Prix

1:28.890

17

12.

Daniel de Jong

MP Motorsport

1:28.902

17

13.

Sergio Canamasas

Status Grand Prix

1:29.103

22

14.

Gustav Malja

Rapax

1:29.115

33

15.

Jimmy Eriksson

Arden International

1:29.204

33

16.

Oliver Rowland

MP Motorsport

1:29.229

21

17.

Sean Gelael

Jagonya Ayam Campos Racing

1:29.353

37

18.

Arthur Pic

Rapax

1:29.717

34

19.

Philo Paz Armand

Trident

1:30.143

39

20.

Nabil Jeffri

Arden International

1:30.223

36

21.

Antonio Giovinazzi

PREMA Racing

1:32.023

14

22.

Meindert van Buuren

Status Grand Prix

1:32.077

18

23.

Nicholas Latifi

DAMS

1:33.952

41

24.

Alex Lynn

DAMS

1:34.714

40

Afternoon results

Pos

Driver

Team

Laptime

Laps

1.

Pierre Gasly

PREMA Racing

1:27.703

25

2.

Jordan King

Racing Engineering

1:28.779

31

3.

Arthur Pic

Rapax

1:28.827

38

4.

Antonio Giovinazzi

PREMA Racing

1:29.023

34

5.

Daniel de Jong

MP Motorsport

1:29.130

22

6.

Oliver Rowland

MP Motorsport

1:29.198

21

7.

Rene Binder

Carlin

1:29.616

27

8.

Jimmy Eriksson

Arden International

1:29.632

20

9.

Gustav Malja

Rapax

1:29.794

37

10.

Luca Ghiotto

Trident

1:29.879

25

11.

Marvin Kirchhofer

Carlin

1:29.991

26

12.

Sergio Canamasas

Status Grand Prix

1:30.063

31

13.

Alex Lynn

DAMS

1:30.574

42

14.

Artem Markelov

RUSSIAN TIME

1:30.732

21

15.

Nabil Jeffri

Arden International

1:30.957

22

16.

Philo Paz Armand

Trident

1:31.739

37

17.

Meindert van Buuren

Status Grand Prix

1:32.700

25

18.

Sergey Sirotkin

ART Grand Prix

1:32.966

43

19.

Nobuharu Matsushita

ART Grand Prix

1:33.471

43

20.

Mitch Evans

Jagonya Ayam Campos Racing

1:33.700

47

21.

Raffaele Marciello

RUSSIAN TIME

1:33.969

38

22.

Nicholas Latifi

DAMS

1:34.478

40

23.

Sean Gelael

Jagonya Ayam Campos Racing

1:34.727

41

24.

Norman Nato

Racing Engineering

1:34.948

48