Crawford ends first day of Abu Dhabi F2 test fastest with final lap

Photo: Dutch Photo Agency

Jak Crawford finished the first day of Formula 2 post-season testing in Abu Dhabi with the quickest time on the very last lap.

After spending most of the opening session only doing in and out laps without setting representative laptimes, Hitech wasted no time at the beginning of the afternoon running, with Dino Beganovic going straight to the top of the times.

Team-mate Luke Browning would also take three brief turns at the head of the timing screens during the first hour, but Beganovic would respond each time with a quicker lap.

Having taken top spot for good with just over one hour completed, Beganovic found a further improvement at the mid-point of the three hour session to set a 1m37.250s. That was still almost half a second away from the morning benchmark set by Victor Martins, a flurry of quick times would come inside the final 10 minutes of the day.

Martins himself got within 0.047s of Beganovic’s time with six minutes to go, only for his time to be deleted for exceeding track limits in the first corner. The same would happen to several other drivers, including Crawford’s effort of 1m36.320s with four minutes to go.

That came after Joshua Duerksen had gone quickest with a 1m36.821s, and that looked like it would remain the fastest valid time of the session until Crawford, as the last car left on track after the chequered flag, posted a 1m36.697s.

Duerksen, the winner of Sunday’s feature race, then had all his times from the session deleted after his AIX Racing car was found to be underweight.

That made it a DAMS one-two in the afternoon, with Kush Maini in second, while Martins found a legal improvement late on to end up third.

Beganovic’s earlier time left him fourth with Browning sixth, separated by Sami Meguetounif who was the day’s fastest F2 newcomer with Trident.

Afternoon session results