Kobayashi tops day one in Spain

Kamui Kobayashi

Kamui Kobayashi set an outstanding lap time in the afternoon testing session for the GP2 series in Barcelona on Tuesday when he recorded a 1:26.806. The Dams driver ended the day at the top of the time sheet, beating the 2007 car’s best time on the Spanish track that was set last year by Andreas Zuber with iSport in a 1:27.024.

Also quick in the afternoon session was another rookie, Yelmer Buurman, who was at the wheel of the Trust Team Arden car, followed by Javier Villa and Davide Valsecchi. Frenchman Romain Grosjean made his way back into the top 5 after a frustrating morning session.

After last week’s very encouraging first run of the 2008 GP2 chassis at Paul Ricard, the 13 teams have gathered this week in Barcelona for a second two-day testing session where the 2008 season opening event will take place on the 26th of April.

Although the morning session was stopped by a few red flags, nothing really out of the ordinary occurred with Pastor Maldonado topping the timesheet very closely followed by iSport International Bruno Senna, ART Grand Prix racer Luca Filippi and rookie Kamui Kobayashi at the wheel of his Dams car. The first 18 cars posted times within a second of each other.

1. Kamui Kobayashi Dams 1:26.806 36
2. Yelmer Buurman Trust Team Arden 1:27.344 34
3. Javier Villa Racing Engineering 1:27.522 26
4. Davide Valsecchi Durango 1:27.564 18
5. Romain Grosjean ART Grand Prix 1:27.597 35
6. Vitaly Petrov Barwa International Campos Team 1:27.605 12
7. Pastor Maldonado Piquet Sports 1:28.071 13
8. JérÃ´me d’Ambrosio Dams 1:28.306 35
9. Ho-Pin Tung Trident Racing 1:28.321 26
10. Giorgio Pantano Racing Engineering 1:28.336 27
11. Andreas Zuber Piquet Sports 1:28.381 21
12. Adrian Valles Fisichella Motor Sport International 1:28.396 15
13. Karun Chandhok iSport International 1:28.418 15
14. Sébastien Buemi Trust Team Arden 1:28.481 31
15. Ben Hanley Barwa International Campos Team 1:28.549 18
16. Alberto Valerio Durango 1:28.555 25
17. Paolo Nocera BCN Competicion 1:28.666 25
18. Luca Filippi ART Grand Prix 1:28.697 19
19. Andy Soucek Fisichella Motor Sport International 1:28.822 18
20 Mike Conway Trident Racing 1:28.880 17
21. Alvaro Parente Super nova Racing 1:28.887 22
22. Milos Pavlovic BCN Competicion 1:29.304 20
23. Bruno Senna iSport International 1:29.338 6
24. Christian Bakkerud Super Nova Racing 1:29.342 25
25 Michael Herk DPR 1:30.864 27
26 Diego Nunes DPR — —