Leon leads the way at Barcelona on first afternoon of F2 testing

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Campos Racing’s Noel Leon topped the timesheet in the afternoon on day one of Formula 2 pre-season testing at Barcelona.

AIX Racing’s Cian Shields was first to record a flying lap seven minutes in, and was swiftly beaten by Rodin Motorsport’s morning pace-setter Martinius Stenshorne who posted a 1m25.930s. His team-mate Alex Dunne got within 0.14 seconds of that two minutes later to sit second, but Stenshorne then grew his gap to 0.359s.

Following a cooldown lap, Dunne trimmed Stenshorne’s advantage to 0.17s, and after 15 minutes the pair had a 1.8s gap to AIX’s drivers in third and fourth. The laptimes of Campos and Prema’s line-ups were several seconds off.

Invicta Racing’s Joshua Duerksen became Rodin’s closest rival 22 minutes in, posting a 1m26.554s. It took a further 10 minutes of driving for him to improve further, to 1m26.406s, and Van Amersfoort Racing’s Nico Varrone rose to fourth at the 34-minute mark. His team-mate Rafael Villagomez demoted Shields to sixth place eight minutes later.

The track was quiet thereon, and hour one of three ended with ART Grand Prix, DAMS, Hitech GP, MP Motorsport and Trident’s drivers still yet to lap at pace.

Duerksen set a new personal best 68 minutes in, leaving him 0.597s off Stenshorne’s 1m25.712s benchmark. DAMS had sent its drivers out for flying laps, with Hitech and MP doing so 10 minutes after that.

A 1m26.278s put Hitech’s Ritomo Miyata third, team-mate Colton Herta separated VAR’s drivers in sixth and Invicta’s Rafael Camara went eighth with a first effort 1.59s off the pace.

The track became quiet again, and Duerksen was in a group who headed out with 65 minutes to go. Before setting a lap, he halted running by spinning at turn three.

Action resumed with 58 minutes remaining, and ART GP’s drivers laid down their first flying laps. Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak set a 1m26.504s in fifth with 46 minutes left, and team-mate Kush Maini slotted into 11th.

A few minutes later, Prema’s Mari Boya and Leon improved to fifth and sixth with 1m26.8s laps, then Duerksen lowered the pace to 1m25.274s before most pf the field returned to the pits.

On the next runs, a flurry of personal bests appeared around half an hour from the end. Leon got within 0.325s of Duerksen and Villagomez was fifth, then Miyata beat Leon by 0.016s, Campos’s Nikola Tsolov jumped from 14th to sixth and Herta also bettered Villagomez as a second now split the top eight.

Camara went sixth fastest five minutes later, setting a 1m25.928s, followed by Trident becoming the last team to log laps at a representative pace.

The final runs had begun for some drivers with 15 minutes left, and Duerksen sat third two minutes after that as Leon went purple in every sector to set a 1m24.370s and lead Varrone (up from 13th) by 0.688s.

Inthraphuvasak later improved to sixth, 1.432s off Leon’s benchmark, and the day was ended eight minutes early by Prema’s Sebastian Montoya entering the gravel at turn one.

Additional reporting by Jacob Awcock

Afteroon session results