Campos’s Nerea Marti fastest in F1 Academy testing at Valencia

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Campos Racing’s Nerea Marti was fastest in F1 Academy’s post-event test at Valencia, with the series having raced there last weekend.

The two-day test was split into four three-hour sessions, and Marti was on top after an hour on Tuesday morning by 0.179s over ART Grand Prix’s Lena Buhler.

There was a lull of track activity until end of the the session’s session hour, as Buhler set a 1m34.096s to go fastest and team-mate Carrie Schreiner rose to third place.

Schreiner was then shuffled down to fourth by team-mate Chloe Grant, who sent second fastest while she was the only driver on track. There were four drivers who took the chequered flag at the end, with Marti improving to reclaim first place with a 1m33.702s. She led Prema’s Hamda Al Qubaisi by 0.142s, with Buhler and Grant in third and fourth ahead of Lola Lovinfisse.

Championship leader Marta Garcia was eighth fastest, but set the most laps of anyone with 42.

Marti was on top for much of the afternoon session too, leading the way with a 1m34.101s after two hours. She did not improve on that laptime but remained in first place until the finish. Al Qubaisi was 0.073s behind in second place, and Rodin Carlin’s Abbi Pulling was a further 0.075s behind in third.

Garcia was fourth, and along with Pulling, Jessica Edgar and Megan Gilkes was one of four drivers to improve on their morning pace.

Al Qubaisi was the early pacesetter on Wednesday morning, and was ahead by a big margin until 49 minutes in when she improved her pace but Garcia got within 0.269s of her at the same time. A minute later Marti moved to the top set, setting a 1m33.262s that kept her on top to the end of the session.

Al Qubaisi could not improve so remained 0.018s behind in second place, with Lovinfosse and Garcia completing the top four. All but Pulling and Garcia bettered their Tuesday pace.

Pulling made up for it in the afternoon as she set the most laps and was the sole driver to improve, but was only second fastest in the session as her 1m33.910s lap was beaten by Marti’s 1m33.849s.

This session featured the least track action, with Pulling and then Garcia topping the timesheet through two hours of mostly inactivity. Edgar did not record any laptimes until the final 20 minutes but still went 11th fastest and set 17 laps.

Post-event test results