GP2 Hot News

Evans tops opening GP2 practice

Mitch Evans

The tenth season of the GP2 Series opened today at Bahrain International Circuit in windy conditions on a dirty track. It was Mitch Evans who ended the forty-five minute free practice session on top with a laptime of 1:42.062, a mere 0.06s quicker than rookie Stoffel Vandoorne.

As the pitlane opened, the DAMS duo was the first one to take to the track. With all twenty-six drivers having tested for three days on this track a few days ago, the opening minutes of the session were relatively quiet seeing mainly installation laps on Pirelli Hard tires.

Conor Daly set a first significant laptime, but rookie Arthur Pic went three tenths quicker to claim the top spot. On the ten minutes’ mark, Evans set the final two sectors in purple and, although his lap was not totally clean as the New Zealander struggled with a lack of grip at Turn 13, he clocked in a laptime fast enough to go top, six tenths better than then P2 Daniiel De Jong.

The remainder of the session saw the rest of the field trying to close the gap to Evans. In the final stages, newcomers Vandoorne and Raffaele Marciello swapped second place, but it was eventually the Belgian driver who managed to put together a laptime a hairsbreadth away from Evans’. With two minutes left on the clock, De Jong stopped at turn 2 which brought out a red flag and an early end to the session.

Behind Evans and Vandoorne, Marciello, Daniel Abt, Stéphane Richelmi, Rio Haryanto, André Negrao, Jolyon Palmer, Simon Trummer and Daly rounded up the top ten. But this pecking order could change tonight during the qualifying session which will take place at 8pm (local time) under the lights of the Bahrain International Circuit.

American Conor Daly did a good job to finish 10th while the other American, Alexander Rossi, driving for backmarker Caterham, could only manage 17th. His career is going nowhere fast as long as he continues to drive for a backmarker team. What a waste of a great talent.

Results

POS NO DRIVERS TEAMS LAPS TIME GAP INT.
1 1 M. Evans RT RUSSIAN TIME 11 1:42.062 0.000 0.000
2 10 S. Vandoorne ART Grand Prix 12 1:42.124 0.062 0.000
3 5 R. Marciello Racing Engineering 13 1:42.269 0.207 0.145
4 11 D. Abt Hilmer Motorsport 10 1:42.319 0.257 0.050
5 8 S. Richelmi DAMS 12 1:42.373 0.311 0.054
6 18 R. Haryanto EQ8 Caterham Racing 12 1:42.388 0.326 0.015
7 17 A. Negrao Arden International 12 1:42.507 0.445 0.119
8 7 J. Palmer DAMS 12 1:42.533 0.471 0.026
9 15 S. Trummer Rapax 13 1:42.553 0.491 0.020
10 25 C. Daly Venezuela GP Lazarus 14 1:42.574 0.512 0.021
11 9 T. Izawa ART Grand Prix 11 1:42.606 0.544 0.032
12 6 S. Coletti Racing Engineering 12 1:42.607 0.545 0.001
13 26 A. Pic Campos Racing 11 1:42.629 0.567 0.022
14 20 D. De Jong MP Motorsport 14 1:42.653 0.591 0.024
15 4 J. Leal Carlin 12 1:42.664 0.602 0.011
16 3 F. Nasr Carlin 11 1:42.707 0.645 0.043
17 19 A. Rossi EQ8 Caterham Racing 13 1:42.959 0.897 0.252
18 23 J. Cecotto Trident 12 1:42.984 0.922 0.025
19 14 A. Quaife-Hobbs Rapax 11 1:42.997 0.935 0.013
20 16 R. Binder Arden International 11 1:43.071 1.009 0.074
21 21 J. Lancaster MP Motorsport 11 1:43.076 1.014 0.005
22 24 N. Berthon Venezuela GP Lazarus 12 1:43.307 1.245 0.231
23 12 F. Regalia Hilmer Motorsport 13 1:43.547 1.485 0.240
24 2 A. Markelov RT RUSSIAN TIME 10 1:43.815 1.753 0.268
25 22 A. Jefferies Trident 16 1:43.842 1.780 0.027
26 27 K. Sato Campos Racing 11 1:44.243 2.181 0.401